Ó Flannagáin

Recipes 

Will actually hold close to 6 gallons with the lid on. Will this work for mashing my grains? I'm pulling all my supplies together this week and running to the brew store on Friday (hopefully, if I can find it).

rdwj

Recipes 

Yes, it will work, but most people that have 5 gallon setups eventually wish they had gone with a 10 gallon setup instead

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Ó Flannagáin

Recipes 

@rd,

What's the reason for that? Wouldn't that just be a bigger container to carry around? I'm not planning on doing 10 gallons for a while

rdwj

Recipes 

With some bigger beers, you don't have enough room, plus you have the ability to expand to 10 galllons if you want.

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chillHayze

Recipes 

I'm doing a 1.065 beer right now in a 5 gal round cooler. It is almost at it's limit. Maybe I could do another half lb of grain and the water that goes with it.

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ayrton

Recipes 

More alcohol = more sugar = more grain = more space. Lots of people use 5 gallon coolers, but a 10-gallon will allow you to both do higher ABV beers and larger batches.

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Rhoobarb

Recipes 

A 5 gal. cooler is only 20 qts. I only do 5-6 gal. batches right now and I have a 50 qt. cooler. If you decide to do a big beer like an Imperial Stout or Imperial IPA, you'll use a lot of grain, even for a 5 gal. batch.

For example, I did this IIPA last summer and plan to do it again soon. You can see there's 17 lbs. of grain in this recipe. With my current cooler/mash tun, it was no problem. I still had enough headspace for batch sparging. With a cooler half the size, I'd probably have to mash in two batches!

RichBrewer

Recipes 

As stated, big beers become a problem with the 5 gallon cooler. I would recommend the 10 gallon round cooler but you can certainly get by with a 5 for now. If you decide it is too small you can always use it for your hot liquir tank and then get a bigger tun.

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Rich

Ó Flannagáin

Recipes 

I got a 10 gallon cooler, but its rectangular. I figured I can rig it up (they didn't have any circular). It has a draining hole on the bottom side, so I figured I could tilt it that way when draining. What do you'll think?

rdwj

Recipes 

No problem with that - lots of people use rectangular coolers. If you're batch sparging, it really makes no difference

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