52 quart mash tun capacity

[brewme29]

What size grain bill would a 52 quart cooler mash tun be able to handle. I batch sparge if that matters.

 

[drgoodbrew]

i use a 10 gallon igloo cooler for my mash tun. the largest grain bill was for an english style barley wine--26.25 lbs of grain for a 6 gallon batch. the lid for the cooler "floated" on top of the mash! i batch sparge as well and ran two cycles of water (190*) through to get the final pre-boil volume. with a 13 gallon mash tun, you should be able to get 30 lbs of grain in there. probably depends on what the shape is though--round, square, rectangular, but my best guess is 30 lbs.

 

[brewme29]

It's rectangular. Thanks for the input, that should be more than enough for me for now

 

[GrogNerd]

limiting factor is not sparging, it's mashing

at 1.25 qts/lb, you could fit 32 lbs of grain in a 52-quart mash tun, according to rackers

shape of the tun and batch size are irrelevant to how much the tun can hold, but you should measure to make sure the tun actually holds 52 quarts

my 70 quart tun measures 24.5 wide by 12.5 high by 10.5 deep = 3215.625 cubic inches = 55.68 quarts

 

[brewme29]

limiting factor is not sparging, it's mashing

at 1.25 qts/lb, you could fit 32 lbs of grain in a 52-quart mash tun, according to rackers

shape of the tun and batch size are irrelevant to how much the tun can hold, but you should measure to make sure the tun actually holds 52 quarts

my 70 quart tun measures 24.5 wide by 12.5 high by 10.5 deep = 3215.625 cubic inches = 55.68 quarts

Good to know, I'll definitely check that