max for 10 gal Rubbermaid cooler?

I'm thinking about brewing a Barleywine soon. I've never brewed a beer this big before. I use a 10 gal rubbermaid round cooler for my MLT. The grainbill for the recipe I'm thinking about is 24.5 lbs of grain. What is the legitimate max grainbill I can fit in my MLT?

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

Looks like it will fit fine.

I managed 19.5# of grain in 10 gal. rubbermaid, a barleywine. Batch sparged. The mash had plenty of room on round one. At mash-out it got close to the top but I wasn't worried it wouldn't all fit. Worked fine.

Maybe with 5# more of grain there would have been a problem. I used 1.25 gal/lb on mash and ~1.5gal/lb at mash out.

I recently just made a brew that used 23 pounds of grain. I have a 10 gallon gatorade jug, and had a 1:1 water to grain ratio. It worked out just fine.

I'll be trying to max out my my capabilities and make the biggest beer possible for the next one. With a ten gallon bin and a water to grain ratio of 0.75, I think I can get 35 lbs of grain in there. I'm not sure what to expect from it... may not be pretty. Since there wont be a lot of room on the top, I'd imagine you'd have to recirculate a lot with sparge water to get a good rinse. Should be a good experiment.


There is an equation in Palmer's "How to Brew" that calculates the volume of your mash.

Mash Volume (qt) = grain (lb) * (water to grain ratio + 0.32)

I dont have the book on me, but that's what I've been using to figure out how much grain I can fit in there.

Here's about 28 pounds in a ten gallon, crushed with a Barley Crusher:

drayman86 said:

Here's about 28 pounds in a ten gallon, crushed with a Barley Crusher:

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Looks good. I add my malt to my strike water. How much water can you get in there?

28 lbs no problem. I've had the sparge water full to the top, then I'll drain some to the kettle as I add water from the top to run the last bit of the water through. I've double sparged on occasion as well.

Casinoman said:

28 lbs no problem. I've had the sparge water full to the top, then I'll drain some to the kettle as I add water from the top to run the last bit of the water through. I've double sparged on occasion as well.

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That's good idea. Just didn't occur to me. One does not need to use entire volume of sparge water at "mash out" (Yes, I'm new to AG)