mash tun volume calculator question

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cheetrowe
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mash tun volume calculator question

Post by cheetrowe »

Hi all,

I'm calibrating my mash tun today in BeerTools Pro. The software does not seem to let me enter the capacity manually; rather, it calculates capacity based on the dimensions. The problem with this is that I have a wheeled cooler, so the wheels take up significant space inside the cooler. This makes me wonder if the capacity is slightly off.

I bought the cooler so long ago I can't exactly remember what the capacity is, so I suppose I'll have to fill it up and measure to get the exact capacity, then fiddle with the length, width, and height in BeerTools until it calculates the correct capacity. At least, I'm assuming that, for a mash tun with a closed lid, it's more important for the software to know the right capacity than the dimensions, correct?
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slothrob
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Re: mash tun volume calculator question

Post by slothrob »

You can measure the size of the hump and subtract that from the full dimensions to get the volume. Perhaps easier, if the hump is half the width of the tun, you can subtract half the height of the hump from the height of the tun. If it is 2/3 the width, then subtract 2/3 the height, etc.
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cheetrowe
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Re: mash tun volume calculator question

Post by cheetrowe »

Yea thought about that but it's kind of annoying to measure. There are the two protruding half-wheel shapes, another hump, and a small inlay around the whole thing. I started to measure but even the measurements themselves take some guesswork (e.g., for the rounded shapes). After approximating it though I think I'm very close to the actual volume. Would be helpful if the program just let you manually put in the volume capacity though.
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jeff
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Re: mash tun volume calculator question

Post by jeff »

The dimensions are not critical, but they do help to estimate heat loss. This is because they are used to compute surface area. My recommendation is to enter the rough floor dimensions and let BTP calculate the height based on the capacity volume.
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