job site cooler?

[tahoetavern]

Been looking at a lot of DIY rigs lately. Lots of people seem to use the Orange "Home Depot" coolers. just wanted to see what everyone thought of them. Pros and Cons, and if everyone uses them for the same part of there system.

 

[Hackwood]

I picked one up, but haven't used it yet. On here I see LOTS of people using them.

 

[mtodd22]

I'm 2 batches into my orange HD cooler. So far, so good. The only issue I've seen is the indentation where the spigot goes is a centimeter too deep, which causes a bit of issue closing the spigot all the way. There's not enough room to compensate with a washer or whatever, so you have to crank it pretty tight using a wrench.

Hard to explain but you'll know what I mean once you try to attach your spigot to the inside filter.

Overall, not real complaints. I'd recommend it.

 

[allenH]

Pros-
Makes a great mash tun for 5 and 10gal (average gravity) batches
Holds heat extremely well (as long as you cover the top)
Well documented, easy conversion

Cons-
Too small for high gravity 5gal and medium gravity 10gal batches.

My last batch was a 5gal 1.120 stout with 29lbs of grain, that meant a double mash brew day. If you did go with a larger square cooler, your temp drop would have to be addressed on "average" beers.

 

[Mongrel]

My last batch was a 5gal 1.120 stout with 29lbs of grain, that meant a double mash brew day. If you did go with a larger square cooler, your temp drop would have to be addressed on "average" beers.

It will hold 25 pounds of grain. If you need to hit 1.120, just swap 4 pounds of base malt out for a little DME. No double mash needed. The 10 gal cooler has no trouble handling a 10 gallon batch of 1.060. I love the cooler, but would like to be able to direct fire it, and just picked up another keg, so I'll be moving up to a 15 gallon stainless mash tun.