Just received the coleman extreme marine 58qt cooler....
First of all, for some reason, when I was posting in this thread before, I was thinking that my other cooler was a 28 qt cooler, when right on the dang side it says 48qt...
So I filled both coolers with measured amounts of water to see what they actually held..
Now the 48 qt cooler I already had, holds exactly 48 qts with lid closed...
The new cooler, advertised and sold as a 58qt cooler, holds 52qts with lid closed..
It's 'much larger on the outside (better insulated), but has very little actual capacity gain...
So, I don't see reason to ruin a new cooler for only 1G gain in capacity, and a huge loss of space on little wooden brew stand...
Basically, I just spent $50 on a mash tun that's not gonna cut it... The saving grace is that I still need a cooler/seat for the boat.. So it's not a total waste..
But now I have to decide if I want to use the 48qt cooler I have, building a manifold for that, and then later either buying a bigger cooler and using the manifold built for the smaller one, or converting an additional keg into a mash tun.. which will fit on my brew stand, but I won't be able to gravity feed it (I'll need a pump)..
So, I'm gonna throw out this question to help me decide..
Can I use my 48qt cooler (actual 48qt capacity) to mash for 10lb brews 'up to' 1.060 FG (600GU)? According to the chart at the beginning of this thread, I should be able to mash for a 708GU brew.. but I don't know if that's filled so full that you can't stir it or what...
If that's acceptable, then I'll just have to plan to either do a two part brew day, or go for less beer if I want to go higher than that...
I'm at a point where I want to quit futzing around with trying to get all this crap together, and start brewing already! This is getting frustrating...
or spend yet 'more' money on a bigger cooler yet, which will probably not fit on my brew stand at all, killing my attempt at saving space...