My $50, 10 gallon mash tun

Midwest Supplies, and other online vendors sell cooler conversion kits, as well as pre-built mash tuns.  I wanted to build one myself after reading dennybrew's instructions it seemed easy enough.  I was able to build a 10 gallon (actually 12 gallon) rectangular mash tun for about $75 with his advice.  I might have been able to spend a bit less if I bought everything at the hardware store, but BrewHardware is such a nice convenient place to find everything this was a no-brainer.  Also, Bobby M from BrewHardware is a nice guy, was really helpful and quick to respond to my questions.

I intend to use this for batch sparging as described on dennybrew - this wouldn't work well for fly sparging and is a very low-end no frills setup.  It should work out just fine, however.  In the end, as long as I wind up with good beer - who cares!

Supplies

• Rectangular cooler ($22.97 @ Lowes)
• Variable length bulkhead ($12 @ BrewHardware)
• Mash Screen ($15 @ BrewHardware)
• 2-piece ball valve ($13 @ BrewHardware)
• 1/2" NPT hose barb ($4.69 @ BrewHardware)
• Teflon tape (used to seal the connections with NPT)

Total: $52.66

Left: Bulkhead, Center: Ball Valve, Right: Hose barb, Bottom: Mash Screen

The Build

The build is simple.  Drill a hole for the bulkhead, attach the mash screen on one side, attach the ball valve and hose barb on the other.  Per Bobby's instructions on BrewHardware:

Drill a clean 13/16" or 7/8" diameter hole in your pot taking care to avoid any wall contours that may prevent the silicone gasket from sitting flat on the inside wall of the vessel

I drilled a 1/8" pilot hole and pushed through with a 13/16" spade bit - its just plastic and insulation so went straight through.  After the hole is drilled everything is pretty straightforward:

The red washer goes on the inside, flush against the flat wall of the cooler.  Wrap teflon tape a couple times around the protruding thread on the outside, then screw on the ball valve, teflon tape on the hose barb, and screw that into the ball valve.

Sharpie to mark the spot to drill, 1/8" pilot bit, 13/16" spade bit, my drill, and a flathead screwdriver that was used to tighten the mash screen

That's all there is to it!