Coleman 70-Quart Xtreme vs rubber made 10gal drink cooler. MLT

Coleman 70-Quart Xtreme vs rubber made 10gal drink cooler.

I am trying to to decide which cooler to upgrade to, I have a 48 quart rectangle igloo cooler which I have made a cpvc manifold and this gave me 65~75% efficiency.. then I moved to a Bazooka screen for my manifold and it drop my efficiency down to 60% (I think its because of all the dead space at the bottom of the cooler) Anyhow I have been making 5gal batches of beer and I just made 2 keggles (BK & HLT) and I can do 10gal batches now. So I am leaning toward getting the larger cooler BUT I am afraid I am still going to have the low efficiency issues with the rectangle cooler vs a round tall drink cooler.

I should note I batch sparge in 1 round of water.

The xtremes are really nice and have essentially no dead space. I get a consistent 85% with my 52qt with just a infusion and a single sparge.

Hmm...I wouldn't have thought the shape of your MLT would have an impact on your efficiency. I've noticed a big difference with crush, though. Normally when I crush all my own grains, I get ~82% efficiency with my rectangular 12-gallon cooler and bazooka filter with batch sparging. A friend gave me some pre-crushed 2-row, and my efficiency plunged to 70-73%. I would go with the 70-quart on the basis of scalability. I have 2 kettles, but my 12-gallon cooler is limited to about ~23# of grain. Sure would be nice to have a bit more capacity for double batches of 1.060+ brews...

I'll add that I do 2 sparges (3 runnings total)...

If the 70 qt is anything like the 58 qt coleman xtreme 6 I have, there is a channel coming from the middle of the floor down towards the drain, which is actually very low on the cooler wall (lower than the main part of the floor of the cooler). I use a stainless steel braid that comes right off the adapter to the SS valve, and I have almost no deadspace at all.

I was just looking at the coleman website, and it looks like it says the 70 qt does have that drain channel.

I can vouch for the xtreme 6 coolers...hold heat very well...I'm sure the xtreme 5's do as well

EDIT: holy $h1t...so many people posting all at once!!!

Have the 70 qt...absolutely love it.