25 Euro Mash Tun

this is my verry first instructable so lets go for it.

becauls i recently moved and have to do some renovating in our new house and can not install my brewery yet, i wanted to brew small batches of beer and made myself a cooler mash tun. and this is what i came up with.

first off all gather your stuff.

20l cooler action (belgian dollar store)

2m copper pipe 15mm in diameter (brico)

4 x 15mm 90° elbow (brico)

1 T 15mm (brico) 2x 15mm end cap (brico)

ball valve + copression fittings (optional)

some plastic or silicon tubing

the trusty old grinder

file

tape masure

sand paper (120 grid is fine)

flux

solder (only use lead free silver solder you dont want lead in your beer right!)

torch

and if you try to make this and you dont know hot to handle these things its best you dont even try it!

i cut the copper pipe in 4 lenghts of 30cm and 3 lengths of 4cm or what ever fits your cooler.

when all your pieces are cut you need to deburr them en sand the ends so the solder will flow nice in the seems.

now its time to test fit all the pieces and align them before you aply flux an solder them together.

when it all fits, place the whole thing on a piece of steel or fire brick or something that wont burn. you dont want your garage to go up in flames right!

then aply flux to all the joints you need to solder and now its time to soder the whole thing together.

to make the wort collection pipes you need cut grooves in 2 pieces of 30cm pipe at 1cm intervals and about 1cm deep with a 1mm cutting disk or a hacksaw.

then deburr them and sand the edges so you can solder on the end caps on one side of the pipe.

the other side wont be solderd becauls you'll need to be able to take it all apart for cleaning.

once all off the pieces are solderd and cooled you need to clean them. what i did was wipe them down with a rag so all the grease and flux are gone and than sanded it all so it got a nice shine and the soaked it in a bath af hot water and caustic soda to get it nice and clean. (you really do need rinse it after soaking)

and now it should look something like this.

i hope you like this instructable and i'm sorry if the english isn't perfect, butt i'm belgian so what do i know :)

if you have any comment or questions feel free!