I have this little Lasko heater in mine (upright chest freezer). It's perfect and doesn't take up much room. Product Dimensions: 3.8 x 4.3 x 6.1 inches
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I'd get the bigger 10gal cooler. You'll be glad you have the extra space and I've never found maintaining temp to be an issue as long as I preheat the tun. I insulated the top of mine with some spray in foam. Drilled a few holes and sprayed it in and filled the holes with plastic hole plugs and...
That's a good point, I was assuming you had a big enough pot to do a full boil. I get by with a single 7 gallon pot and a cooler mash tun. Barely. You'll probably need and immersion chiller if you don't have one.
I'd do a cooler mash tun. You can build one with a hose braid for pretty cheap. Coolers are pretty reasonable at the Home Depot. BargainFittings is a great place for valves. You can go cheap with brass or spend the money to upgrade to stainless.
I just used mine for the first time yesterday. With it full, I didn't notice the wobble...maybe it straightened out full of water and grain but it was a non-issue.
Home Depot has 10 gal Rubbermaid coolers w/ the HD logo on them for $42. I just bought one yesterday. Bargainfittings is a good source for ball valves at good prices. I just put together one w/ a stainless valve and braid for about $90 total. I drilled holes in the lid and shot in some...
I do AHS extract kits with a full boil and it works great. You want to steep the grains in the suggested 2gal of water to avoid extracting bad tannins. After steeping add a little under 4 gals (bringing you to just shy of 6 gal) to account for boil off. Then proceed as usual. You'll want a wort...
Forgot to report back...the AHS American IPA turned out awesome, I would highly recommend it. It has great hops to it w/out being too much for people that don't typically like IPAs. I love big IPAs but my wife doesn't...but she liked this one.