MLT cooler midifications?

[NuclearRich]

I am in the process of collecting equipment to start partial grain brewing, to ease the jump into all grain. My brother got rid of a Coleman Xtreme cooler, used once and huge. Im not sure of the size (no labeling or imprint says anywhere on it), but it is clearly too large for a partial mash. It is probably too large even for an all grain mash with a simple beer (which I have a couple that I like).
So here are a few questions:
How big is too big? From the reading I've done, it seems that if your grain bed is too shallow, it will affect sparging as well as efficiency.
Any ideas on crafting some sort of insert for the cooler, so that I can use half of its volume?
Any other comments?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Grain bed depth is not an issue batch sparging. For mashing a few pounds for grain, you could simply do it in a pot w/ a grain bag. I would just stick the pot in a warm oven to keeep the temp stable. IMO, unless you are doing 10 gal batches, a big a$$ cooler is more of a hassle than a benefit. Plenty of inexpensive rectangular coolers out there for 20 bucks or less to bother with a monstrosity.

 

[suprchunk]

If you think it is too big for some of the beers that you say you like, just increase the size of those batches if your other equipment can handle it.

And why would you even bother with a cooler for a partial mash? You are only steeping grains that don't need to be mashed.

 

[KevinW]

If you've got a 5 gallon pot use it to fill the cooler to check how many gallons/quarts the cooler will hold!
If you are handy, you could make a divider out of plexiglass and food grade silicone to create a smaller cavity! It is just an idea so be nice!

 

[BrewFiend]

If you have the 36 quart or 34L coleman xtreme cooler I just built my MLT with pretty good success. It uses no plastics, seals great, keeps very stable temps, and is probably the cheapest one to build that i've seen yet!

 

[NuclearRich]

Thanks for the replies everyone!
wilserbrewer - I know there are cheaper ones that I could get, but this one was free. FREE I say! lol... so I want to try to stick with this because eventually I will be using more of its space. I want to fly sparge, but I guess I can do batch sparging for my small partials. Good thinkings there...

suprchunk - awesome idea for increasing batch size! lol I can do at least 8gal boils... and the partial mash wouldnt be just steeping specialty grains, thats what i do now. the partial mash would be maybe 5lbs of mashed base malt to get a bit of the fermentables, while still allowing plenty of room for error and low efficiency, with extracts on standby to add. This way I can get my feet wet and slowly get used to mashing and lautering, and not have to worry that my beer is screwed if I dont get all the sugars. Baby steps I guess.

KevinW - That is actually exactly what I had in mind, but I was thinking of making a track with some kind of gaskets so that I could slide the plexiglass in and out as necessary. So you are thinking right with me! Of course, I would have to make either a telescopic manifold, or make it otherwise adjustable

Thanks again all! More advice is always welcome!

 

[Steelers77]

I rock the Coleman 48qt for my regular mashes, and have the 2 gallon Coleman cooler for partial mashes( I haven't done one in a while). Chris Colby did a few nice write ups about partial mashing for BYO magazine. Google it I'm sure you would find some info.

 

[NuclearRich]

I wanted to ressurect this thread because I still want to modify my MLT. I have been using it with great success, but I feel like my smaller beers are suffering from the odd (small) size of the grain bed.
I believe I measured it as a 72QT capacity recently.
I really want to add some kind of removable water-tight and heat-resistant insert that will, in effect, cause the MLT to be smaller when necessary.
Ideas???