partial mash question

So I was hoping for some advice on this. To ease in to the cost of the all grain equipent I was thinking about just buying the mash tun conversion kit for a cooler I already own which is a 10 gallon I believe and then the only other cost would be the propane burner that I can use for my current 5.5 gallon pot which would allow me to do enough for a partial mash without having to buy the 7.5 gallon pot and so forth.

Questions is... can I use a 10 gallon cooler for a partial mash or would the grain bed not be deep enough?

Thanks for the advice.

With a partial mash, part of the beauty is that you don't need a mash tun at all. You can simply mash the few pounds of grain in a sack of some sort right in the pot, and then do a quick sparge with some hot water in a strainer.

A 10 gallon cooler is actually sufficient for doing almost any 5 gallon batch so really, the only thing you're lacking from doing all grain is a larger pot. So you could technically use the cooler you have to do a partial mash, even though it would be a thin grain bed, it's almost silly not to spend a few more dollars to get the bigger pot and go all grain, or just do the partial mash in your pot and skip the cooler completely.

Ah, yeah that makes since i guess... any pictorials or other information for how to do this out of the pot exactly? I just thought the cooler would be ideal for really stepping in to the all grain process without going all the way and also for holding the temp steady which would be hard in a pot on a burner it seems.

I would need the burner either way... I did my last extract on my glass stove top and it was not even powerful enough to bring 2.5 gallons to a good boil. Grrrr..

Just get a steeping bag or two, and steep the grains at 155 (or whatever temp you want) for 30-60 min (I go with 40). Then take the grains out, raise the temp to 175 and steep again for 5 to 10 min. After that bring it to boil and add the extract and hops as normal. Also if your stove isnt powerfull enough, you can split the water into 2 pots if you have em, steep in one, sparge in the other then bring them both to boil and combine them. If you get a good boil going in the 2 pots then it should be enough to maintain a boil once you combine them. Thats what I have to do for my IPA so I can get the max on IBUs.

I use a 5 gallon cooler for my partial mash mashtun and it works great for most anything I want to do so 10 gallons would be just fine. I started doing partial mash brews using a pot, but the cooler makes it WAY easier and I definitely recommend setting one up if you want.

Awesome guys, thanks for the help!