Coleman Xtreme for mash tun

I have an old Coleman 70 qt Xtreme cooler and I want to convert it into a mash tun. I read somewhere that for 5 gal batches of all grain a bigger cooler is not necessarily a better one. Question, will this one work with quality results or am I wasting my time?

SocalNat said:

I have an old Coleman 70 qt Xtreme cooler and I want to convert it into a mash tun. I read somewhere that for 5 gal batches of all grain a bigger cooler is not necessarily a better one. Question, will this one work with quality results or am I wasting my time?

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It's rather big but should work just fine. You could use that for 10 gallons if you decide to go that way.
What kind of sparging will you be doing?

daaaaang....that be a lot a cooler. you will be fine.....that's what I use for my 5 and 10 gallon batches. no issues with efficiency or mash problems.

I use it for 15 gallon batches just fine.

Daver77 said:

It's rather big but should work just fine. You could use that for 10 gallons if you decide to go that way.
What kind of sparging will you be doing?

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Fly sparging. Wouldn't that be a better way If I have more surface area of grain? I will build a CPVC manifold to cover the whole bottom of the cooler.

Bigger the better. If you find you are losing temps during your mash, you can cut out some foam insulation inthe approximate shape and lay over your mash to try to prevent temp loss in the headspace.

The bigger the tun you have, the bigger gravity beers you can do, or the bigger volume of normal-gravity beers you can do.

Read this thread for a pretty in-depth discussion of tun sizes as related to allowable volumes and gravity numbers. It's very helpful.

@EdWort

This is the first post of yours I've seen since bottling my first attempt of your Haus Pale Ale. The green beer left over after bottling tasted amazing, and I have incredibly high hopes for the finished product. I'm sure you hear it all the time, but thanks for posting such a great recipe.

Cheers!

djfriesen said:

Bigger the better. If you find you are losing temps during your mash, you can cut out some foam insulation inthe approximate shape and lay over your mash to try to prevent temp loss in the headspace.

The bigger the tun you have, the bigger gravity beers you can do, or the bigger volume of normal-gravity beers you can do.

Read this thread for a pretty in-depth discussion of tun sizes as related to allowable volumes and gravity numbers. It's very helpful.

@EdWort

This is the first post of yours I've seen since bottling my first attempt of your Haus Pale Ale. The green beer left over after bottling tasted amazing, and I have incredibly high hopes for the finished product. I'm sure you hear it all the time, but thanks for posting such a great recipe.

Cheers!

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I just ran a test in the cooler by adding approx 3 gal of 160 deg water and left it in for 90 mins. after 90 mins the temp dropped to 138 deg so I lost 12 dergrees. I would think the grain bed would do a better job of retaining heat than just water. Am I correct? If I was to fit a piece of insulation ontop of the grain bed I would just remove it prior to sparging because I am not so worried about heat transfer at sparging, correct? I am not to worried because like all the rest of the brewing process I will become this crazy insane nervous beast and everything will most likely come out fine. I enjoy this whole thing because each brew becomes a situation when you learn new things and become an expert in others. With all grain I am excited but at the same time I feel I am geting in over my head.

Ya, you'd just leave it on during the mash. Assuming you're batch sparging, you'll be stirring the grain anyway, so you can't have the foam on it. I suppose you could leave it on while fly sparging, but you'd have to experiment, and I doubt it would be necessary.

And in this test, did you preheat the cooler? If not, a lot of that heat is leeching right into the plastic walls.

djfriesen said:

Ya, you'd just leave it on during the mash. Assuming you're batch sparging, you'll be stirring the grain anyway, so you can't have the foam on it. I suppose you could leave it on while fly sparging, but you'd have to experiment, and I doubt it would be necessary.

And in this test, did you preheat the cooler? If not, a lot of that heat is leeching right into the plastic walls.

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Ah, preheat the cooler, I forgot, thanks.

Run it again and see. I bet the temp holds much better.

It better be good for a mash tun. I put my order in for Santa and should be getting it for Christmas. I use an older 48 qt now but for high gravity brews and 10 gal batches I need bigger.

beerloaf