Moving Up to 10 Gallon AG Batches

[redbirdjcd]

First time poster here -

I've been brewing with a group of friends for a while now and we've actually just purchased a new Blichmann 15 gal Boilermaker and a Floor Burner (which already seems to be a great piece of equiptment) to ramp up our ability to churn out 10 gal batches as well as 5 gal batches.

My question is this, though: what are you all using to mash your grains? We have a converted 10 gal cooler that we've been using for our 5 gal batches that works great. I'm concerned, however, that with grain bills that are essentially going to double on 10 gal batches that we won't be able to effectively mash and sparge in a cooler of this size. I'm certain that converting another 10 gal cooler and evenly spliting the grains between the two would "work," but I'm wondering if there is a way we can do this without a new build.

Any thoughts?

*Edit* - I should say in our existing tun is a circular cooler where we're using a bazooka screen and not a false bottom. A false bottom was probably the way to go in the first place...

 

[phoenixs4r]

There's a sticky in equipment that takes your mash tun size and efficiency and let's you know how big of a beer you can achieve.

 

[redbirdjcd]

Excellent. Thanks very much for the info. I appreciate it.

 

[phoenixs4r]

Excellent. Thanks very much for the info. I appreciate it.

Np. Efficiency will possibly increase as well due to extra sparging. It did for my 10 gallon batch.

 

[redbirdjcd]

Cool.

We are hoping to brew a pretty big beer and it looks like we're going to need more space to be efficient. 10 Gal batch of an "Irish Coffee Porter" for a St. Patty's Day party we have planned. Should be a fun experiment!

 

[phoenixs4r]

I have always been interested in doing two separate mashes, as a buddy and I were supposed to do a 10 gallon barley wine that would definitely not fit in my 10 gallon cooler mash tun.