The Bar Towel

Anyone else find this a pain in the ass? Suppose it's easier with kegs but I have a rectangular coleman cooler. Does what I need for mashing purposes but man oh man, what a drag to clean.

Lots of scooping and rinsing to get that sucker clean.

I scoop it clean, take out the false bottom and rinse everything.. once. There is usually a few dozen bits of grain left over that I don't bother cleaning. It's all going to be boiled anyway.

Dump the grain. Spray clean with a water hose. Done.

I dump the spent grains and hose it down at the end of the brew day.
I then give it a wash with soapy water and a thorough rinse right before adding grain for the next brew.

Only time it becomes a pain in the ass is if you leave the spent grains in it for a few days. It can get a little tough to clean. I only had to make that lazy mistake once.

dump grains, rinse with cold water (has to be cold - Bleach does not react well to hot temperature inside a kettle), add a couple ounces of bleach to water, let sit for min 1/2 hr, rinse with hot water

markaberrant wrote:Dump the grain. Spray clean with a water hose. Done.

I do this. No worries.

+1 to most of the above. I don't use any detergent or bleach in mine. I'm also using a rectangular cooler.

Remove grains.
Rinse with hot water spray.
Scrub each surface with green scrubbie.
Rinse again.

My PITA is the copper tubing on the bottom to clean. It all comes apart and I use mostly just hot water blasting through it. Sometimes though some bits of grain get stuck in there. I'm fortunate to be a trombone player (although that's arguable LOL) and I have a long snake-like brush for my slide that I can use on the longer copper tubing from the MLT. Works like a charm for those pieces.

jcc wrote:

markaberrant wrote:Dump the grain. Spray clean with a water hose. Done.

I do this. No worries.

Yeah, I have been using the same cooler for 4 years, never done more than this. I also let it air dry before putting away. I stick my nose in there every once in awhile, doesn't smell bad or anything.

markaberrant wrote:

jcc wrote:

markaberrant wrote:Dump the grain. Spray clean with a water hose. Done.

I do this. No worries.

Yeah, I have been using the same cooler for 4 years, never done more than this. I also let it air dry before putting away. I stick my nose in there every once in awhile, doesn't smell bad or anything.

Good point on the air dry. Mold will be an issue if you aren't brewing regularly and store your MLT without letting it dry first. Made that mistake once, closed the lid after rinsing and didn't have time to brew for 6 weeks. Needless to say there was quite a bit more work for me that brew day. Won't do that again.

markaberrant wrote:

jcc wrote:

markaberrant wrote:Dump the grain. Spray clean with a water hose. Done.

I do this. No worries.

Yeah, I have been using the same cooler for 4 years, never done more than this. I also let it air dry before putting away. I stick my nose in there every once in awhile, doesn't smell bad or anything.

Agree but it's a drag standing outside in January doing this and I got real cramped quarters in the laundry room

jaymack wrote:Agree but it's a drag standing outside in January doing this and I got real cramped quarters in the laundry room

You don't have to stand out there with it while it dries! If you don't want to air dry, I don't see why you just couldn't wipe it down with a clean towel.

jaymack wrote:

markaberrant wrote:

jcc wrote: I do this. No worries.

Yeah, I have been using the same cooler for 4 years, never done more than this. I also let it air dry before putting away. I stick my nose in there every once in awhile, doesn't smell bad or anything.

Agree but it's a drag standing outside in January doing this and I got real cramped quarters in the laundry room

I just stand it on end, lid off (I removed the pain in the ass hinges long ago), valve open, in the corner of the garage until the next brew day.

I do mostly mini-mashes with a 5gal cooler indoors (did my first AG Sunday with a Berliner Weisse... don't need much capacity for a 3%abv beer) and I'd love to be able to just hose it down. Unless you plan on doing a no-boil (which I'd be reluctant to do with a cooler anyways), that's all that's really needed for any hot-side equipment.

But since I'm indoors, I scoop it out with a ladle into a compost bag, soak it in soapy water for a bit (may start using a bleach solution or oxi-clean though), dump it, spray the sides with the pull-out faucet (too lazy to scrub!) and wipe it mostly dry in order to get most of the grain still left in the bucket. Probably even overkill, but it's actually far less work than I think I made it sound. Though it's totally unnecessary from a sanitary point of view, I'm just a bit anal about even the off-chance of a bit of unintended flavor intrusions.

I have a round Igloo and just dump the grain out and stick the end of my IC in there and wash out the rest when I cool my wort.