Insulating a bottling bucket for a HLT

[Frozer860]

Next weekend I plan on doing my first AG brew. I have a 10 gallon BK and a cooler I converted to a MLT. my old brew pot can only hold 2 gallons of water. I want to insulate one of my bottling buckets to use it as a HLT. is there any cheap and easy way to insulate a plastic bucket?

 

[soupfist]

Next weekend I plan on doing my first AG brew. I have a 10 gallon BK and a cooler I converted to a MLT. my old brew pot can only hold 2 gallons of water. I want to insulate one of my bottling buckets to use it as a HLT. is there any cheap and easy way to insulate a plastic bucket?

Any money & time you'd have to put towards that idea is better spent by just buying a cheap cooler and using that as your HLT. Ideally you want to mount a ball valve in it so you can get a steady controllable flow out of it, but even if you don't have the time/money to do that before next weekend, you could opt to either bail sparge water a little at a time out of the cooler with a saucepan, or if your old brew pot has a valve, you could boil the water you need in your BK, store it in the cooler, use your old brew pot as your HLT and just batch-feed it more water from the cooler as needed.

If you insist on a bottling bucket, by all means find out what happens when you run an hour's worth of 170 degree water through that rinky-dink plastic valve before you brew. I honestly don't know, but my guess is it'll warp itself into uselessness and leak all over the place. Better you do that now than ruin a brew day.

 

[TexasWine]

Next weekend I plan on doing my first AG brew. I have a 10 gallon BK and a cooler I converted to a MLT. my old brew pot can only hold 2 gallons of water. I want to insulate one of my bottling buckets to use it as a HLT. is there any cheap and easy way to insulate a plastic bucket?

How about a sleeping bag and bungee cords?

But honestly (and I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately) just skip the MLT and HLT and do BIAB your first go round. It's simple and you may find you like it and never want to change.

Use any energy you'd spend insulating that bucket and instead insulate your kettle for the mash, using the sleeping bag and bungee cords I suggested above!

 

[wilserbrewer]

Keep it simple...you have many options.
1. Use your kettle as an HLT, just store your first runnings in a bucket til the kettle is empty.
2. Do a full volume mash in your tun.
3. Cold water sparge.
4. Throw an old coat or blanket over the HLT bucket.
5. If your thinking fly sparge, think batch sparge.
6. Rdwhahb, you don't need to be rigid.

Cheers!


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

 

[YeastMode]

I have used a 5g rubbermaid/Coleman cooler in a pinch. Home Depot has them on sale for $20. The only upgrade I made was putting a sticker over their logo.

 

[Frozer860]

Good ideas, thanks. I haven't heard of a cold water sparge yet. Is that just batch sparging with cold water? It would work the same as having 168 degree sparge water?

 

[brewbama]

One bucket with a lid and one kettle is all you need.

For example: I heat strike water in my kettle then mash in a Coleman Extreme cooler. At ~ 5 min to mash out I heat my mash out water in the same kettle. Then while I let the mash out have a 10 min rest I heat my batch sparge water in the same kettle 10*F higher than may sparge water temp target. I pour my sparge water into a bottling bucket and cover with a lid to hold while I lauter my first run into the same kettle. Once the first run is complete, I use the sparge water - which is now at my sparge temp - from the bottling bucket to batch sparge. I lauter the sparge and begin the boil.

Cheap and Easy.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[wilserbrewer]

Good ideas, thanks. I haven't heard of a cold water sparge yet. Is that just batch sparging with cold water? It would work the same as having 168 degree sparge water?

I have never done a cold sparge, but some smart people claim it works fine. (Kai)
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Braukaiser.com

Only downside I know of is that it will extend your brew session as it will of course take longer to heat to boil as the sparge will cool the wort during the sparge...say 20 minutes?