This is how big your Mash Tun needs to be - Page 5

DKershner · 03-08-2010, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woopig

I'm sure this has been covered, but I'm having trouble finding it. All the talk seems to be about having a mash tun that's big enough. I'm deciding between the NB 5 gallon and 10 gallon cooler system. So, if I still want to do some 5 gallon batches, am I going to regret getting the 10? I thought I had heard something about needing an adequate grain bed depth, but nobody seems to talk about that much. Any thoughts?

10 gallon is really made for 5gal batches. 5gal is for 5gal batches less than 1.060. Both will have adequate (And nearly the same) grain bed depth for 5gal batches.

Islandboy85 · 03-10-2010, 04:50 PM

How would I go about figuring out my max grain, strike water, max gravity, etc for a 36 qt cooler. I know it's oddball sized, but I have this picknick cooler and wasn't sure if it was a doable size. I just don't have the money for a false bottom right now for my keggles, so was going to use them for my HLT and BK in the mean time. Is this cooler viable?

**Bobby_M** · 03-11-2010, 04:30 AM

It's probably big enough for 10 gallons of 1.050 beer or 5 gallons of big ol' barleywine at 1.090

Islandboy85 · 03-11-2010, 05:30 PM

What is the formula you use to figure that out Bobby?

**Bobby_M** · 03-11-2010, 05:53 PM

Just take the number in the row for 20qt MLT, divide by 20 and then multiply by the number of quarts the MLT in question has.

Another useful formula was posted further down:

If you get around 80% efficiency, to calculate for mash tun size requirement in quarts, it's (Desired OG x Batch Size)/17 = mash tun size

Let's say you want 1.088 x 15 gallons, it's (88 x 15)/17= 77 quart tun.

woopig · 03-12-2010, 12:15 AM

Ok, so what about a 15 gallon Mega Pot as a mash tun, when I may still be doing a good number of 5 gallon batches? Still ok, or am I pushing grain bed depth?

Islandboy85 · 03-13-2010, 01:20 AM

Thanks Bobby. Really helpful.

food00d · 04-22-2010, 08:35 PM

Great post. Very helpful.

**GilaMinumBeer** · 04-22-2010, 08:42 PM

I was seriously expecting to see a phot with captions;

"This Big"

schreck · 05-04-2010, 12:22 AM

am i right to assume that a 5 gallon cooler can handle an OG of 1.13 for a 3 gallon all grain batch?

X(3/17) = 20qt
3x = 340
x= 1.13

glad algebra was useful for something! wouldnt want to be solving for x's or y's after a few drinks tho...