Help me lighten my mash tun

[man_beach]

I've been brewing for 25 years and have always used a 'picnic cooler' mash tun. Recently I've been having a problem with arthritis and just don't have the strength that I used to have. I have to get my wife to help me lift the picnic cooler onto the kitchen worktop to drain off the wort! (I calculated that the total weight of my last brew, grain and liquid, was over 17 kilos). So I want to experiment with a few recipes which use sugars and other adjuncts which don't need to be mashed.
Most of my brews are fairly typical English style strong bitters, around 4.5% to 5% ABV - along the lines of Abbot, Young's Special etc. Can anyone point me towards a few proven recipes which feature sugars, glucose and the like that I can try out please?

[Trefoyl]

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You could try a hydraulic lift cart.

[Trefoyl]

A pump might be another solution.

[guypettigrew]

Can you put the empty cooler on the worktop then fill it and leave it there?

Guy

[drjim]

Fill it up on the worktop so you only have to lift water into it rather than a big heavy box full of wet grain???

[guypettigrew]

Great minds think alike-just 1 minute apart!

Guy

[Eric]

Assuming you brew 23 litres, it seems you mash with 2.5 litres per kg of grain. Would it be practical to mash with 1.5 litres per kg and sparge more?

Try adding 5% sugar, darker sugars in darker beers and reduce the grains accordingly. Few breweries use sugars today as malt is cheaper, but made using the right amount of the right sugar, beer can be better.

[JamesF]

You could try a hydraulic lift cart.

Oooh, now, that makes me wonder... I've been pondering the same problem for a while, because lifting 45 litres of beer onto a worktop to bottle it is also a bit tricky. Perhaps I could manufacture something similar myself using a bottle jack to raise and lower the top.

James

[vacant]

One lifting point I have is holding my BIAB over the boiler to drain after the mash. I have a hook screwed into a carport rafter and use a £12 pulley to raise the bag above the boiler and hold it there.

The other lifting point on a brew day is getting the wort into my fermenting fridge which is on a table for easy bottling. Solved by splitting the load. First half drains from boiler into my 50 ltr FV which I can put in the fridge. Second half drains into another FV which I place on top of the fridge. Open the tap and drain it to the lower FV which gets shoved fully in and the fridge door closed when full. I could do more than one trip refilling the second FV to split into several more lighter loads.

Why not put your mash tun on a stool and drain to a large jug or small storage container to fill the boiler?

[MashBag]

You could let it settle. Use a "whale pump" or jug to remove the top few litres, then lift.

I also bought one of these and it's brilliant. Get the one with wheels. So good.


Motorcycle Lifting the Platform https://amzn.eu/d/1ZyOnBq

[Cobnut]

Many similar thoughts here to mine, but your question was about extract recipes.

Many of the Graham Wheeler recipes have extract versions. Have you looked at his books? https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/bn_7024824021

e.g. His recipe for Young's Special uses 1.6Kg of Pale Malt Extract and 1.6Kg of Diastatic Malt Extract (although I struggle to understand why this is necessary) for 23L. I'm 99% sure these would be LME, but you could also use DME, but if you do remember you need to convert the quantities. For every Kg of LME, you should substitute approx. 850g DME.
Hops:
42g Fuggles and 30g WGV for 90 mins
16g Goldings for 15 mins
OG 1046
Racking Gravity 1011
32 IBU
Colour 25 EBC

There are also extract versions of most of the Jamil Zainashef recipes in his book "Brewing Classic Styles", but probably not many English beers, and those that he has are American versions of English beers

I also used to do no boil recipes with DME. I simply dissolved the DME in some hot water (usually the water in which I boiled the hops - you get very good hop utilisation this way) and then topped up with a suitable quantity of cold water to achieve the target volume. It is also perfectly possible to add specialist grains (crystal, black, chocolate, etc.) to the boil with the hops to extract the colour and flavour.

Do let us know which path you choose and how you get on.

Good luck!

[man_beach]

Assuming you brew 23 litres, it seems you mash with 2.5 litres per kg of grain. Would it be practical to mash with 1.5 litres per kg and sparge more?

Try adding 5% sugar, darker sugars in darker beers and reduce the grains accordingly. Few breweries use sugars today as malt is cheaper, but made using the right amount of the right sugar, beer can be better.

Thank you for your suggestions. I don't think a hydraulic lift is practical in my kitchen, but the thought of a thicker mash is intriguing. As Eric says, I've always used 2.3 litres per kg. It'd need a bit of recalculating in my brewing spreadsheet, but I'll see how that works.

[Eric]

I've always used 2.3 litres per kg. It'd need a bit of recalculating in my brewing spreadsheet, but I'll see how that works.

American breweries mostly use 50% more mash liquor than the British norm, at least since the end of Prohibition. A stiffer mash needs better mixing, but enables larger brew lengths and/or stronger beers for a given size of mash tun, as does sugar additions.

You might find Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine useful, if only for volume purposes.

[MashBag]

I've been brewing for 25 years and have always used a 'picnic cooler' mash tun. Recently I've been having a problem with arthritis and just don't have the strength that I used to have. I have to get my wife to help me lift the picnic cooler onto the kitchen worktop to drain off the wort!

Silly question maybe? Why not fill it on the kitchen table? Why does it have to be on the floor?

If its too high perhaps sit it on a chair. Or use a simple step. Fill with a jug or a bit of hose.

I can't help but think a practical solution will be easier for you.

This is coming from a sympathetic perspective, as I have had to "change my ways" too recently. After a few visits to the osteopath.

[IPA]

This is what you need. Though I doubt that the lady of the house would like it in the kitchen

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