MLT question. Which size?

[Chairman Cheyco]

I'm getting my equipment together for AG and I was wondering which size of round cooler to go with. I can't see myself getting tired of doing this stuff, so should I bite the bullet ond go for the 10gal, or start with the 5gal?
Are lower gravity beers less efficient in the 10 because the grain bed is thinner? Also, I would imagine that it wouldn't hold the heat as well as the five with the same amount of grain.
Pros and cons of each anyone?

 

[El Pistolero]

They say you can't really do big beers with a 5 gallon...you're not going to be making no wimpy girly-man beers are you?

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

They say you can't really do big beers with a 5 gallon...you're not going to be making no wimpy girly-man beers are you?

No, of course not, I'm Canadian. Most of my beers have an OG of about 1.055 and they NEVER dip below 1.045.

 

[SwAMi75]

I'd definitely go with a 10 gallon. They're quite a bit more expensive than the 5 gallon, though. I use a 10 gallon Igloo, and it insulates very well.

I found a great deal on them a while back, but I can't find it now.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

I'd go with a 10g, as well. I have a 38qt (almost 10g) rectangular that was less than $30. I can see the advantages to the round coolers, but I've been getting around 80% efficiency (+/- 2%) with it, so it must do okay. I've had grists from 10-14lbs in it, and no problems.

I started with a 5g round and quickly got tired of being cramped.

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

I'd go with a 10g, as well. I have a 38qt (almost 10g) rectangular that was less than $30. I can see the advantages to the round coolers, but I've been getting around 80% efficiency (+/- 2%) with it, so it must do okay. I've had grists from 10-14lbs in it, and no problems.

I started with a 5g round and quickly got tired of being cramped.

80% is pretty awesome. A couple questions, are you batch or fly sparging? and what is you manifold setup?

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

I'm batch sparging and have a copper manifold. I should try to get some pictures sometime. The Coleman Extreme cooler I found has a little sump channel leading into the drain plug and I managed to get part of my manifold in that such that I have almost no deadspace.

I've always heard fly sparging has marginally better efficiency, but I've also seen articles stating the opposite (BYO, for instance), that it's too system dependent to be able to make a blanket statement. Frankly, at 80% efficiency and a huge time savings I'm not inclined to switch back to fly sparging which I've done in the past.