5 replies to this topic

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I have a giant coleman xtreme cooler mash tun which works great for my 5 gallon batches (regardless of OG as far as I can tell so far). Could I use this for smaller (2-2.5 gallons perhaps?) batches?For those of you that makes smaller batches - what do you use for a primary and secondary vessels? I could see the standard 6 gal buckets being fine for primary but for secondary I don't have anything close to 3 gallons.EDIT: cooler is 70qts

[MtnBrewer]

What's the volume on that cooler? Or more importantly what's the footprint? If it's a big cooler (48ish qts or bigger) then I think the grain bed is going to be pretty thin. Batch sparging might work though. Alternatively you could use a 5 gallon cooler with something like a an EZ-Mash (wire mesh screen). I'm sure you'd get enough grain depth to fly sparge if you wanted to.As for fermentation, I'd ferment in a 5 gallon carboy and skip secondary.ETA: OK, just saw your edit. A cooler that big is probably too big for such a small batch. However, if you batch sparge it might still work. I think it's worth trying.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

What's the volume on that cooler? Or more importantly what's the footprint? If it's a big cooler (48ish qts or bigger) then I think the grain bed is going to be pretty thin. Batch sparging might work though. Alternatively you could use a 5 gallon cooler with something like a an EZ-Mash (wire mesh screen). I'm sure you'd get enough grain depth to fly sparge if you wanted to.As for fermentation, I'd ferment in a 5 gallon carboy and skip secondary.

I saw you posting and immediately thought - what would MtnBrewer want to know - THE VOLUME (hence my above edit).Here is an image of the cooler as well: https://www.walmart....duct_id=4807332As you can see it has a pretty good sized foot print so the bed would get pretty thin. I do batch sparge as well.One thing I could try is lifting one end of the cooler with some blocks of wood or something so that the mashing would go in in the corner of the cooler.EDIT: If I used one of my better bottles this would be the first time I'd actually get to see fermentation going on - pretty exciting!

[ncbeerbrewer]

EDIT: If I used one of my better bottles this would be the first time I'd actually get to see fermentation going on - pretty exciting![/quote]That in itself is exciting for sure. Definitely one of the reasons why I have stayed with glass and plan to get better bottles. Enjoy the show!!

[Cliff Claven]

Lift the side opposite of the drain with some phone books to increase you grain depth.Pre heat well as you may loose a lot of heat with out the thermal mass of the grain.I have an old 3g water cooler I want to convert to a small batch/starter making mash tun. The drain started leaking so it is no good for the original purpose. I have all the parts.......

[dmtaylor]

I do 3-gallon batches in my big rectangular cooler. I might be lazy or stupid but I've found that I can't effectively runoff or sparge from my cooler when I mash less than 6.25 lb grain -- and this includes raising the far end to help it all run out the spout. The reason being: at a mash bed depth of only a couple of inches, there's way too much channeling going on, and/or air bubbles getting sucked through, which serves to screw it all up.My solution? I mash in a bag in my kettle on the stovetop, then use the old 70s-Papazian-popularized method of a colander in a bucket method, pouring the sparge water through the colander. It works! It's a royal pain in the ass, but it truly truly works. Just last night I brewed a batch with 5.5 lb grain. My efficiency was through the roof, 90%, with original gravity of 1.067 -- that was 7 points higher than expected. So I'm adding 1.5 quarts boiled water to bring the gravity back down. But the point is -- it works.In future, I might try bending my stainless mesh hose /slash/ Bazooka into the lowest possible corner of my cooler mash tun. Right now, it extends out about half the length of the cooler. But if I just had a short little stubby mesh, or bent it in half, I wonder if it would help. Hmm....