Coleman Extreme Manifold

This is the hopefully last of the updates to my 52 quart Coleman Extreme manifold. Part One dealt with swapping my brass valve and bulkhead parts for a sweet stainless kit from BargainFittings.com, while Part Two covered the new manifold layout and the thinking that went into it.

I said in my last post that I was going to use a Dremel to cut the manifold slots, but that ended up not working out. I couldn’t find a cut-off wheel that was large enough to let me cut straight slots in the longer tubes. I did use it for the short runs near the bulkhead:

It worked great for the cuts shown above, but as you can see, they’re a bit wider than I’d like. With much reservation, I went off to the local hardware store and grabbed a pack of five, 22 TPI hacksaw blades, and set off to slot the rest of the copper. Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered. It took maybe an hour to cut the remaining pipes, clean up the burrs, and get the red dye buffed off the outside of the pipes. Here’s a comparison of the dremel (top) vs hacksaw (bottom) cuts:

It looks quite a bit better than the first version! So nice, in fact, that I’m a little worried someone from Lagunitas might call me up and ask me to make them a lauter manifold for that new 250bbl brewhouse in the Windy City. Here’s a snap of the whole manifold assembled:

I finished this project up with something that’s generally frowned upon: I soldered some pieces together. (pause to let the shock subside) To clarify that, I soldered some of the joints together. Most of the pieces come apart so it’s still very simple to clean, but it gives me a bit more confidence that nothing will come apart in the mash, and generally is just less hassle when putting it together.

I had a chance to put the new manifold to use this past Sunday and was really pleased. My Grist was 45% wheat and no rice hulls, so it was lacking the usual amount of filter material, but the sparge was uneventful, if a little slow. Can’t ask for much more than that!