alternatives to ez-masher?

[dochawk]

I was *going* to buy my daughter an ez-masher for her birthday, but it seems like Jack isn't reopening.

I saw something similar but larger in a shop, but didn't think to check the name for later use.

Can anyone tell me what these things are called?

(it's basically a pieces of SS screening welded to be a cylinder, and works wonderfully)

thanks

hawk

 

[Jag75]

You talking about a hop spider ?

 

[dochawk]

no, this is for mashing.

It simply sits at the bottom of a cooler or pot, and is close to impervious to stuck sarges. Jack actually did a pure wheat mash just to see if he could . . . (it worked).

I went from a custom built copper tube manifold (oops, jut dated myself in this, didn't I?) to this, and my life got *so* much better . . .

 

[day_trippr]

link?

 

[dochawk]

https://schmidling.com/maltmill.htm mentions permanent closure.

here's an older version of the EZ-masher page: https://web.archive.org/web/20160307125242/https://schmidling.com/empp.htm (but now it's a blank page).

He also published the instructions to make it long, long ago. If memory served, he was surprised at how many people bought them rather than building their own.

 

[day_trippr]

So, a bazooka tube with a copper extension. Got it.
Should be similar, simpler tubes on the market...

Cheers!

 

[dochawk]

*just* simpler isn't ideal (at least not for when he put these out)--the bent copper made a difference in reaching a usable position in the cooler, etc.

And, yes, trivial to make if you can weld or solder stainless . . .

They *are* out there, but I'm trying to find one online I can ship, and need a name for it to search by . . .

Last weekend I boiled 5/16 tube to soften it and used needle nose pliers to push and pull it through. Now my spigot dangles, but it would crack the cooler spigot if I forced the copper in . . .

For my prior cooler, I drilled a hole to use PVC or some such to make pieces fit, but this limited its usefulness as a cooler for camping.

 

[beernutz]

I used an ez-masher for years and I still have mine though it has been about 8 years since I last used it. It worked pretty well for a decade or so and was definitely well made but isn't the be-all-and-end-all by any means.

Jack may have never had a stuck mash with his but I managed to have some with mine plus the spigot became very hard to turn despite numerous tear downs and cleanings.

I think the ball value / bazooka screen combo I use now in my mash cooler is a better system than my ez-masher. YMMV.

According to a post on the AHA forum, JSP is out of business due to a fire in his shop in 2018.

 

[Bobby_M]

Having a tube that Z-bends down to the cooler floor is going to get you a couple efficiency points in a batch sparge setup. That's about it. I made an improved design a decade ago for my cooler by running a copper tube along the bottom of the cooler with some minor slits cut at the bottom along the length. The end of the tube gets capped. A 3/4" OD stainless mesh was hacked off a water heater supply line and pulled over the whole length of copper AFTER coiling some copper wiring around the tubing. This "spring" served to keep the mesh from making contact with the copper tube which would render the filtering area at the contact point useless. That thing not only flowed flawlessly but it also didn't flop around in the mash getting beat up with the paddle since it was rigidly affixed. I can duplicate this design in 100% stainless steel based on my True Bulkhead design but it's going to run near $35.

 

[dochawk]

it appears that "bazooka" was the magic word I needed for searching, thanks.

Gosh, so many choices these days . . . now I see that I need to find ut what she's brewing in . . .

 

[day_trippr]

You can even make your own EZ-masher clone from a purchased bazooka tube.
All you'd need is the short copper tubing, a compression fitting that matches the kettle hardware, and a worm clamp or two...

Cheers!

 

[dochawk]

She's currently using BIAB for 1 gallon batches !

So I bought her a 10 gallon SS pot instead.

If I'd realized that full-out BIAB actually worked with reasonable extraction, I probably wouldn't have bought the new cooler . . . I used to do something similar in a pinch.

I can generally smell a beer made with extract several inches away; there's a sweetness that I pick up on (or at least did with the older malts). I found an extra-light powdered malt extract (sold in bulk at the grocery store, no less!) that I could use in small amounts. So I would bag about 6 lbs of crushed grain and mash in the brewpub, getting to a bit over 030, and then add the DME to get up to 050 or so.

If anyone wants to, I wrote it up a couple of times in the late 90s as a "pseudo mash" . I can't find it on google groups, which has most of the r.c.b archives (then again, maybe it was on a day I used x-no-archive), so maybe the hbd . . .