Lauter Tun

Hey guys,

I have been extract brewing for about 9 months and I think I am well overdue moving to all grain brewing. I am looking to acquire a lauter tun and I wanted to get some advice because I have absolutely no experience with all grain brewing. I just bought a 25 gallon stock pot, so I will be brewing reasonably high volume. I know many people just build lauter tuns out of coolers. Are these lauter tuns as effective as any? I have considered building one myself, but I honestly will probably just opt to purchase one because I am working on building my own fermentation chamber right now and work is heading into busy season. Below are a few of the items I am considering. Also, if I purchase one of these lauter tuns will I need any other equipment to begin all grain brewing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark.

http://www.highgravitybrew.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=1606&idaffiliate=15
http://www.amazon.com/gallon-Mash-Tun-Liquor-Tank/dp/B00420S5NS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314640396&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/100qt-Stainless-Mash-False-Bottom/dp/B003EWPNQM/ref=sr_1_4?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1314640546&sr=1-4

Well money being no obstacle, I like the stainless tun. The 5 gal picnic cooler will not make any very strong brew because of limited volume. There are threads here that can tellyou what grain/water volume you can get in a cooler. The High gravity tun is also cool.
The difference between the stainless and the High Grav, is obviously that one can be direct fired, one cannot. Also don't forget you'll need a good flame for a 25g batch

The cooler is not a bad option, mainly b/c cheaper, though it doesn't have some of the fanciness of the products you're looking at there.

One thing you will very definitely need with batches of 10+ gallons is a wort chiller. The 25' ones will run you $35-50, the 50' ones will be around $100, I guess? But yeah, as far as I know, you will certainly want one of those when trying to chill large volumes of hot wort.

Good luck! Let us know what you choose.

Of the 3, the only one that makes any sense IMHO is the Stainless. That'll allow you to go pretty high gravity on 20 gallon batches, and basically as strong as you want on 15 gallon batches. The 15 gal plastic model will severely limit your gravity for larger batches.

That said, if you don't want to spend that much, buying a 100 qt cooler and building your own can be done for < $100. And building a mash tun is VERY easy. You should be able to knock it out in ~2-3 hrs.

Big orange or blue (depending on which big box store) ribbermaid 10gal drink cooler.

I like my bigger rectangular coolers. They work very well batch sparging, and fly spargers are not getting any better efficiency. A 70 qt Coleman Xtreme would be perfect for your size of brew pot.
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/