Recomended mash tun for 10gal?

So last August I got a $50 gift card to Home Depot for my brith day. I bought a 20 gallon cooler to make a mash tun. The hardware I had on hand at the time wouldn't fit in the 20 gallon cooler. So I took it back and got the 10 gallon cooler and put the ball valve in and got it all set up. Now I'm in the process of stepping up to 10 gallon batches and am wondering if I need that 20 gallon cooler or not. I do all grain and was just wondering what everybody else does here

We do 10 gallon AG batches, and the 10 gallon cooler is way to small to use as a mash tun, you will want the 20 gallon, think ours is 16gallon, and it is too small at times, especially with beers with a big grain bill.

CoalCreekBeer said:

We do 10 gallon AG batches, and the 10 gallon cooler is way to small to use as a mash tun, you will want the 20 gallon, think ours is 16gallon, and it is too small at times, especially with beers with a big grain bill.

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That's what I was afraid of. The 10 and 20 gallon coolers at Home Depot are within $3 of the same price so I could probably sell mine for what I paid for it and then upgrade. Just have to buy a new ball valve that will fit in the new one. Thanks for the input

I'm able to do 10 gallon batches with my 10 gallon MLT, but I need to split up the sparge water to do so. If you're solely doing 10 gal batches I'd go ahead and use the 20 gallon cooler since you'll be limiting your maximum OG with the 10 gallon.

phenry said:

I'm able to do 10 gallon batches with my 10 gallon MLT, but I need to split up the sparge water to do so. If you're solely doing 10 gal batches I'd go ahead and use the 20 gallon cooler since you'll be limiting your maximum OG with the 10 gallon.

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Meaning I could do a regular mash and then sparge until I get enough for the boil?

Pretty much. Last 10 gal batch I did was a 1.055 stout, used 6.7 gal for the mash and 3.9 gal twice for the sparge to get 11.5 gal pre-boil. The cooler was pretty full for the mash though, so if you're looking to brew much stronger beer than that you'll have to come down in mash thickness or just move up to a larger volume.

Edit: that was using a 1.25 qt/lb mash thickness, and my efficiency hovers around 75% typically.

A 48 qt cooler works really well.