50 quart Mash Tun

Just picked up a 50 quart Maxcold cooler from Academy for $25 All grain here I come. Should I go ahead and spring for the stainless steel ball valve, also anyone see any problem with using the Bazooka Screen instead of a braid?

Bazooka screen costs a lot more. I fitted my Igloo 48qt with (non-S/S) ball valve and DIY toilet-supply S/S braid for about 13 bucks total, all parts found at Menards.

Coworker of mine did dual Bazooka screens in his Igloo 48qt with a custom CPVC 3/4" manifold..... but he spent $40 on screens alone.

I like saving money though, after how friggin' much I spend on other stuff. Like ingredients. And kegging equipment.

Do you have plenty of room in your cooler for large grain bills?

Not really. Well. ...... OK, it's not that simple.

"Large" meaning a fairly full 1.060 beer, with about 14 lbs total grain weight, no problem at all. Easy.

"LARGE" meaning the 08-08-08 RIS I brewed yesterday, 1.088 with 17.7 lbs grain weight ... it was still decidedly under the max volume of my mash tun, but it was on the full side. I couldn't go higher than probably 19, maybe 20 total lbs grain weight.

For the RIS, my dough-in was 5.5 gal, and my sparge was 3.75 gal. The sparge was definitely close to overflowing. Two 2-gal batch sparges could have been helpful.

Maybe I will switch it out for the 70 quart, it is only $5 bucks more.

i'd go for that. you'll want to brew some bigger beers in the future

I use the Coleman Xtreme 70 quart for 10 gallon batches. There is a lot of room in there! IMHO, it is too big for 5 gallons. Remember, 70 quarts = 17.5 gallons. That's darn near twice the size of the 10 gallon coolers that a lot of people use.

Thanks for the input guys. Thats what I like about this forum, someone else has already spent the money and found the right equipment.:rockin:

Wables said:

I use the Coleman Xtreme 70 quart for 10 gallon batches. There is a lot of room in there! IMHO, it is too big for 5 gallons. Remember, 70 quarts = 17.5 gallons. That's darn near twice the size of the 10 gallon coolers that a lot of people use.

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I have the 80qt and it has worked just fine when I do 5 gallons. It's not that big really. It's just tall and long but not very wide so you still get a good grain bed.

If you are batch sparging, a shallow grain bed in a big cooler works just fine. The only difficulty would be heat loss from the large surface area relative to the depth of the grain.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

I like copper manifolds over braided lines, but that's me. Maybe it's the level of pita work that goes into it