For the past several years I have used a 10-gallon circular mash tun with a false bottom. I fly-sparge (don’t roll your eyes at me Denny! ) so I like having a false bottom. I’ve had an extra converted keg in my garage for almost 3 years now that was always going to be a mash-tun whenever I got around to it. The only time I figured I’d ever really need it was doing a 10-gallon batch of a beer above a 1.070 or so. I’m doing one this weekend and was about to run the LHBS on my lunchbreak to get a false bottom for a keg, when I realized that I might be able to use the one from my cooler. Anyone try this…Does it fit OK? Is there a ton of dead space? If I remember right the ones for Kegs are shaped differently to fit the inner contour of a keg.
I really like fly sparging. Once you have done it enough and have a good feel for it, you can just set your sparge and run-off at the speed you want and walk away. I get a ton of other things done while I’m sparging.
I’m with ya on fly sparging. And you can get the best efficincy, if that’s important. Just set the flow really slow, and walk away for about an hour (10 gallon batch) I make big versions of any beer I make. So it works nice for me.
Mike, it depends on the false bottom. If it doesn’t have any legs and your diptube would work with it, you should be good to go. Or you could borrow mine.
I use a half barrel for my mash tun and I used the piece I cut out of the top of the keg as the false bottom. I removed the stem and sliced the neck down below the ears, used a SS flat washer that fit inside, put in a thru wall fitting to a chuck of tubing to the valve in the side of the keg. I had to use a nipple in the thru wall fitting to extend the pick up lower for less dead space. Anyway I hope that makes sense with no pictures.
Drill holes. Like a 1/32. The only problem is finding good drill bits that small. I had a lot of bits break on me between two false bottoms. I finally just started getting cheap Harbor Freight bits that I wasn’t worried about breaking. I’d say I probably got 10-15 holes per bit and I drilled probably 200 holes per false bottom.
) so I like having a false bottom. I’ve had an extra converted keg in my garage for almost 3 years now that was always going to be a mash-tun whenever I got around to it. The only time I figured I’d ever really need it was doing a 10-gallon batch of a beer above a 1.070 or so. I’m doing one this weekend and was about to run the LHBS on my lunchbreak to get a false bottom for a keg, when I realized that I might be able to use the one from my cooler. Anyone try this…Does it fit OK? Is there a ton of dead space? If I remember right the ones for Kegs are shaped differently to fit the inner contour of a keg.