Stainless thermobox

[froggi]

Alright, I give in...... Having wanted a coolbox conversion for a while, I gave in and got one pre-made by some dude in the local-ish area.....

It's ok but not the best as in the coolbox is pants...

With the weight of the grain and liquor, the outer casing is tending to come away from the interior and insulation, showing it's poor quality and cheapness

The next step is either a better quality plastic coolbox or a stainless thermobox....

I know where to obtain one of the former but the latter is eluding my searches.... one word guys.... HELLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!

Where do source these items??

[Fil]

coleman and igloo are 2 quality cold box makers, the SS thermopots can be sourced via ebay france www.ebay.fr, search for 'thermos' and when you find a seller try emailing for a direct sale price they generally offer a discount if you buy direct rather than thru ebay.

[Belter]

Catering-Portal.Bergland@msg.afterbuy.de

[froggi]

Thanks Fil and Belter.... Another small query... What sort of capacity are we looking at?? I'm never going to do any larger than a 2 corney brew so a grain bill size of no more than 12-14kg max

[JonoT]

I brew 30L and normally use about 6KG of grain and about 1/3 fill my 48L coolbox. I recon that i could easy brew double (when i get a bigger boiler!) with my 48L coolbox. I would have said a 50L thermo pot would be right size, depending on if you are having a false bottom or not then you would need one slightly larger

[Horatio]

I use a 50l SS thermo pot with a false bottom as a mash tun and have no probs using 10 or 12kg for 45l brew lengths. I think they also do a 60l one too if you want that extra bit of space. I love mine and even standing in a cold outbuilding in never loses more than one degree over a 90 min mash!

[froggi]

Cheers Jono & Horatio..... Will look out for something that sort of size... Thanks all for the interest shown

[Blackaddler]

The biggest Thermopot that Bergland supply is a 70L pot, which appears to have a tap fitted.

"MARMITE THERMOS CAPACITE DE 70 LITRES ACIER SPECIAL"



They also have 50 and 60L versions, which don't appear to have a tap. Maybe someone can confirm if that's correct.



There's an old thread... Here.

[kev1976]

The biggest Thermopot that Bergland supply is a 70L pot, which appears to have a tap fitted.

I have three thermopots from Bergland which are 50, 70 and 80 litres. The only one which has a tap is the 70lt. Easy enough to change it out for a ball valve though.

[Blackaddler]

Oh yes, I forgot about the 80L pot!

[froggi]

More input... Awesome... again thanks for the posts and it's now starting to get confusing, lol

[barneey]

My best advice depending on your brew size is to get either a 60 or 80 litre thermo pot, install a vossey style bottom outlet drain and make yourself a perforated false bottom. Ive found the 60ltr one (gives another 50mm in height over the 50ltr) is more than adequate for 10 to 12 kg grain bill + that extra hight is handy for any other sparge equipment you might want to add, if your just batch sparging either the 50 or 60 (batch size dependant again) will do. (My typical brew length is 2 corneys + a few bottles). Side mounted drain mash tuns do work well but you will have to rely on a syphon effect. I do however miss the additional capacity for stepped mashing of an 80 litre pot. For a 60 litre with 12 kg of grain stepped mashing is full to the brim (again dependant on mash ratios).

I think from memory Hop & Grape will make a FB for you at a very resonable cost. You might also be lucky to find another member local to you willing to fit the pipework.

Do the build to your cost budget but I dont think the thermobox FB option can be beaten.

Cheers

[froggi]

Cheers Barneey, just the sort of input I needed as I think I've a delayed Christmas pressie in the offing.

The grain bill (max12kg) is an absolute.... more likely to be 8-9kg but who knows!!!

The pipework stuff and cutting for the bottom outlet (that's what I was thinking about anyway) can be done at work as I've access to some inox cutting discs and a decent grinder as well as a dremmel type tool for any fine-tuning needed. I'm thinking of raising the MT up on blocks so negating the need to compromise the lower rim. I have a 6gal boiler and a smaller (20-ish ltr, ideal for a separate sparge source) also have the HLT and boiler side of things sorted at the moment. Overcomplicated maybe but I bought it after being told it was a 30 ltr item and I only paid £20 for it anyway.

I seriously want to go for a stainless set-up for ag but am on a distinct budget as I've previously posted, having brewed 4 ag brews and struggled with it and I've have made mistakes but produced some nice tasting beer.

I'll not turn away from the ease of kit brewing for the forseeable and will hold on to that side of this interesting hobby for simplicity and speed with decent results as a fallback situation but I have known for some time that a 3v ag setup is the way I want to go.... More expensive initially but the results have spoken for themselves.

Thanks again for the input all

[barneey]

Just a couple of other builds on here, bigrichlock went the extra distance and got a skirt put onhis pots to raise the height.

&

From memory I think darkonnis simply mounted at lease one of his "bottom drain" pots directly over another (cant remember if it was the HLT tho?)

[froggi]

Yeah I saw that post by darkonnis... Thought it quite an inspired solution, simple but effective (applauds) and I thought I'd log that one in the grey matter filing cabinet... Negates the need for any elbows etc and a ballvalve can be placed inline. Just means the hot wort needs to be pumped back up (unless I'm feeling strong at the time) into the fv, although I suppose if I create a tier-system but that carries inherent problems re getting water to the top tier.

Again Barneey, thanks for the input mate.... It's helped greatly