2 Gallon Cooler for partial mash

Does anyone use a small cooler to do a small mash?

I am strictly an AG brewer but lately have had the luxury of doing an extract batch and I have to say it was a bit quicker and less space was needed to do my work which made clean up a bit easier. When I did the partial mash I used a grain bag and soaked the grain bill (1.5#) for 30min removed the bag, sparged and proceeded as normal. For that technique I found that my efficiency was lacking, so I thought what if I had a smaller MLT that I can use and get better efficiency. I looked in my brewing gear and found that I had all the necessary parts and pieces to make a 2 gallon MLT.

I have yet to use it but I was wondering if any of you have done this too?

- WW

Done? No. Have the cooler? YES! According to my calculations, you should be able to mash up to 5# of grain in the 2gal cooler. No reason why it won't work, I know many others have done the same.

I use a 2 gallon cooler and a grain bag for mini-mashing, it seems to work great. I don't really have anything to compare it to though, as that's the only way I've done it and I don't know how to measure my efficency for the mash.

I used a 2 gal cooler for the only PM that I did and it worked great. Got 79 percent efficency with it. I attached a small braid to the spigot that was on it. Lately I have been thinking about doing small 1 gallon experimental batches with it.

I do small batch (3 gal) AG and PM exclusively. Love my 2 gallon tun and have done up to 6# with a 1:1 ratio.

I bought a 2 gallon cooler to make yeast starters with. It ended up being just too easy to fork over the few bucks for DME and not do mini-brew days just to make a starter.

Did another mini-mash last night in mine, this time with 4.5 lbs of grain and I don't think it could handle much more than that. It worked fine and I got good enough efficiency that I had to add extra top-off water to my fermenter to get my OG right, but I wouldn't try doing more than 5 lbs of grain with it.

Should I get a narrower cooler for a deeper grain bed? There's a 2gallon Coleman with removable spigot,but it's wider and short. To mash about 4# with a .5 gallon per # sparge ratio would the bed be too thin?

I think I could easily attach a better spigot

ifishsum said:

4.5 lbs of grain

Click to expand...

Did you build a manifold, or use a grain bag? Do you have a mini mash paddle? :cross: