doing a full 5 gallon boil

[luvinit]

getting everything together to start doing a full 5 gallon boil,my question is should I be starting with exactly 5 gallons of water or should i start with more to compensate for boil off?
second;to use a seperate mash tun like a water cooler , or is the pot ok ,what are the advantages to using a water cooler? temp control?

 

[dk21]

Coolers are popular for mash tuns because they hold the temperature well. A process called brew in a bag allows you to do everything in your boil kettle, so read up on that.

You may want to enlist the help of some brewing software. The software will compensate for grain absorption, dead space, boil off, chilling loss, etc. so that you'll know how much water you'll need.

 

[Bigglesbrew]

I agree with dk21. Software can really help to calculate boil off and shrinkage. As a ballpark I would suggest around 6.5 gallons for a 60 min boil. Again, this is ballpark. For my system I use 7 gallons but I lose a lot of water for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[luvinit]

thanx for the helpful info