Should I get a bigger mash/lauter tun?

I currently own a 48 qt. coleman extreme cooler, and use it for all of my mashing. I noticed that with my average beers, I am usually coming pretty close to the top of the cooler when mashing and sparging. The strongest beer I have made in this system yet is a 5.5 gallon batch of beer with and OG of 1.071. It is worth it to get a bigger cooler so I can make some very strong beers like barley wines, belgian strong ales, etc.? I do enjoy bigger beers, and I know that for some my cooler will be too small. Should I buy a new cooler or just use my current set up and use malt extract to get extra gravity in my brews?

I've got a coupon for a 100 qt. extreme cooler for $49.99. Is that too big if I get a new cooler, would a 62 qt or 70 qt be better?

You should be able to mash a 1.1+ 5G beer in a 40qt mash tun...your 48qt should be fine.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/how-big-your-mash-tun-needs-123585/

How much strike water are you adding? Are you draining before adding sparge water?

Even at a lower efficiency and average mash thickness a 1.071 beer shouldn't be anywhere close to maxing out a 48 qt cooler. What efficiency are you getting, and what mash thickness have you been using? I'm all for going big with the MLT, but if you're going to stay at your 5.5 gal batch size, I'm not sure you need anything larger than what you have even for really big beers.

sorry, for some reason I said I have the 48 qt, when I meant to say I had the 36 qt. Thanks for the responses, but I mixed up my info. Is the 36 qt. big enough or should I go bigger?

I would stick with what you have. I have a 40qt cooler and I don't come anywhere close to the top. The largest beer I've done is 1.08X and I don't really link giant beers, so no need for 1.10X monsters.

Well I had some extra money, and the family needed a new cooler anyway since I used our old one for my mash/lauter tun. I went with a 50 qt. coleman extreme that is more square shaped than my old 36 qt. It does have a much larger dead space on the bottom though. I hope the square shape will give me better heat retention. I guess the only way to find out is to brew a batch!

I have a 50qt square coleman marine looking one. It holds heat just fine. I just did 28lbs in it this morning for a 10g batch .

StonesBally said:

Well I had some extra money, and the family needed a new cooler anyway since I used our old one for my mash/lauter tun. I went with a 50 qt. coleman extreme that is more square shaped than my old 36 qt. It does have a much larger dead space on the bottom though. I hope the square shape will give me better heat retention. I guess the only way to find out is to brew a batch!

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So what was the point of this thread then? It sounds like you were going to buy a new mash tun no matter what we said.