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Joon75

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I want to make the jump to all grain. I want to start with a cooler. I also want to start brewing 10 gallon batches. Is this possible with a 10 gallon cooler? What size should my boiling kettle be? As for sparging, I think I'm going to go with batch sparging. What do you guys think? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
I want to make the jump to all grain. I want to start with a cooler. I also want to start brewing 10 gallon batches. Is this possible with a 10 gallon cooler? What size should my boiling kettle be? As for sparging, I think I'm going to go with batch sparging. What do you guys think? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

In order to do 10 gallon batches, you should be considering the following...

20 lbs of grain(minimum) inside you mash tun to get a 5%ABV beer. That grain will absorb about 28 lbs of water...or 3.5 gallons.
Most people have a boil off rate of 1.25 gallons per hour, so consider that a minimum as well. so, 3.5 + 1.25 has already got you to darn near 5 gallons already. Now add 10 gallons final product + a little loss to trub and bottling.

In short, a 20 gallon coolor for a mash tun, and most folks use an old stainless steel keg for a boil container.
 
Joon75 said:
I want to make the jump to all grain. I want to start with a cooler. I also want to start brewing 10 gallon batches. Is this possible with a 10 gallon cooler? What size should my boiling kettle be? As for sparging, I think I'm going to go with batch sparging. What do you guys think? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Most people can get by with a 10 gallon Rubbermaid, but you may come up a little short for really big beers. I've used both a Keggle (15 gal) and a 72 qt rectangular cooler for mash tuns. You can always do 5 gallon batches of the big beers.

Boil kettle should be the same proportion to what you'd use for full boil extract - 1.5 to 2x your batch size. Again, I've done 12 g batches in a Keggle, but you can have some nightmarish boil overs.
 
I make 11 gallons batches that will end up to be 10 after everything is done.
I have a 10 gallon cooler and a 15 gallon direct fired kettle for mashtun. The most grain I ever put in the the igloo cooler was 23 lbs and ended up with a 1.060 og wort. In my case 90% of my beer are under this og, so I would say the 10 gallon cooler is plenty. I am not sure what would be the limit for the 15 gallon mashtun. My max was 30 lbs and could have added more...
I also have a 15 gallon boil kettle and if you manage the boil during the hot break -I use a spray bottle with water - then you should be fine.
 
For my ten gallon batches I use a ten gallon mashtun and have done up to 30 lbs of grain(it was hard to do with this much grain but definitely possible) which ended up at about 7.8% abv. My kettle is a 15.5 gallon stainless steel commercial keg. My Sparge tank is 10 gallons as well.
 
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