General Category > All Grain Brewing
5-gallon vs. 10-gallon cooler?
fmarlo:
I'm trying to take the "next step" into doing both partial and full mashes. I've seen a lot of discussions and instructions for converting a cooler into a mash tun, and I feel pretty confident that I can do it. I know that you pretty much need to have the 10-gallon tun if you're doing all-grain and that a 5 gallon is generally fine for partial mash recipes.
My question is: Is there any reason NOT to build a 10 gallon rather than a 5? Would, for example, having only a few pounds of grain in the 10 gallon be a mistake? Am I right in thinking that a 10 gallon is suitable for both full and partial mash recipes?
Thanks for your help.
aa7yy:
Just been thru this. Did the 72 quart Coleman as that should be all I need. Kept having temperature problems on 5 gallon batches. Bought a 36 quart Coleman and all is good. The big one for heavy 5's and 10 gallon batches. The "little" for all of the rest. One extra cooler another $32 bucks. Pretty cheap in this hobby and a lot easier. More time and more headaches might of fixed it, but now the problem is gone. The problem was preheating the MT and the amount of liquor required.
Didn't really answer the 5 to 10 gallon question, but same principal.
sparkleberry:
I've got a 70 qt cooler. I got it to begin batch sparging and accommodate large batches when needed. that said I still continue to brew 3 gallon batches regularly in the rather large cooler with no problem. these batches haven't been over 8lbs, so I'd say that a few pounds of grain shouldn't be a problem. as I understand it, batch sparging isn't dependent on x amount of grain.
if you can get the 10 gallon, I'd say do it.
cheers.
thetooth:
My only concern with using the 10 gallon cooler for partial mash small beers is that you may end up with the grain bed too shallow to reasonably act as a filter.
Honest question: Why bother partial mashing? If you are going through the effort to partial mash and you are willing to build a 10 gallon mash tun, you can just as effectively go all-grain. you'll save a few bucks and have even more control over your process. Just something to consider.
tschmidlin:
If you batch sparge then bed depth won't matter and a 10-gallon cooler will work fine for smaller batches.
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