All-Grain Equipment question

You might want a mash tun bigger than 5 gallons, if you make any big beers. Check the "Can I Mash It" calculator on this page...
http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

 

I would definitely advise, as VikeMan, to think about going with a 10 gallon cooler. For instance, I'm brewing a Stout on Sat. with an OG of 1.074...I need almost 6 gallons of water for the mash...not to mention the grains.

 

Not really. You're going to dial in your strike water temp to hit the mash temperature you want at equilibrium, which will include the headspace. I routinely do 5 gallon, small gravity beers in a 52 Quart Coleman XTreme.

 

I have a five gallon mash tun, and it's too small to make a five gallon batch higher than about 7% using a 1.25:1 water/grain ratio (quarts/lb). It is fine for mashing, but if you want to make something stronger than 7%, you have to make less of it. I would also recommend getting a bigger mash tun. The cost difference shouldn't be much.

 

Do you plan to order your grain already crushed? If not, a grain mill is in your future.

 

I'm a 5 gallon brewer. My first mash tun was 7 gallons and it maxed out when making a DIPA. I increased to 10 gallons and couldn't be happier. Check out the Rubbermaid 10g round cooler . . . if you get it with a HD or Lowe's logo it will be under 50 bucks. Everyone and his dog makes a false bottom for this model (1610), you can find it for 'bout 40 bucks and installation takes all of 10 minutes (no drilling). Now you are an AG brewer.

Other equipment: I say it's imperative to have a top-notch thermometer. Okay, you always need this but measuring mash temp with a cheapie sucks, and mash temp is critical. I would put off paying some bills if that's what it took to get a good thermo. For about 7 bucks you can get a heavy duty SS spoon . . . don't think about AG without this item. I use food grade silicon tubing to transfer the sparge water and wort @ a buck or so a foot. Buy twice what you need and rest easy. Not absolutely required, but a HLT with thermo and ballcock valve is mighty nice. Started to mention Quick Disconnects, but will save that for another thread.

Unrelated . . . don't you have a Rauchbier that's about ready?

 

Came here to post this exact thing. I started AG a few months ago with a 5 gallon, and immediately wished I did a 10 gallon cooler...it's no big deal as long as you're cool with adjusting down to like 3.5 or 4 gallons of finished beer if you do bigger beers, but I like high ABV beers and lately i've been brewing with friends and splitting the beer so I wish I jumped right to 10.

 

I started with a 42qt (I think) cooler and just upgraded to a 75qt so I could more easily do 10 gallon batches. If you are going to batch sparge, you can use almost any cooler with braided hose (http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/). I would get a minimum of a 10 gallon cooler for the future flexibility, no need to worry about a false bottom and fly sparging.

 

Nobody ever regrets buying bigger. It would be interesting to start a two-part poll, with the first being, "Do you wish you had bought the next size up?" and the other being, "Do you wish you had bought the next size down?" Unless you have very specific reasons you can articulate for going small, the answer will almost always be to err on the side of size.

 

I don't know about that, Chet Ripley might have a counter to that point.

 

You're not wrong with your thought to not go crazy in sizing. However, unless you commonly brew small beers, sometimes go to medium, I agree with what many others have suggested going bigger than 5 gallons.

Here's a reference for you:
http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD-3.html

Using Palmer's notes, a 5 gallon will be good up to about OG of 1.052 as a general rule of thumb.

Where as your 10 gallon using the same rule of thumb would be good up to a OG of 1.104.

 

I also disagree, same reference:

Also, as the OP mentioned too much head space can lead to temp control issues. Granted I think Vike is right that 5 vs. 10 isn't too big a deal, but 5 vs. 20 would be.

 

I brew primarily 5.5 gallon batches. I use a 7.5 gallon hlt, a 10 gallon mash tun and a 15 gallon brew kettle. My hlt is too small, and I have a keggle waiting in the wings. The nice part of it all is if I want to brew a 11 gallon batch and split it into two fermentation vessels to play with yeasts or other additions I can do it. Really, I thought about going smaller and am really happy that I didn't.

 

The only counter argument I can think of is that you can make half batches of bigger beer in a 5 gal cooler. If you're really hung up on buying smaller for space concerns, cost or whatever, you can still brew ANY beer. It's just that your batch size will be limited.

I've kicked myself several times for not buying bigger. The cost will still pay for itself after a few brews of AG vs extract.

Edit: As far as other costs go, you will probably want to get a ball valve to control liquid flow. They run about $25 last I checked (2 years ago). Maybe someone can undercut me with an online dealer.

 

You can worry if you wants to worry but you doesn't has to worry (apologies to Ray "You Can Call Me Jay" Johnson).

At a minimum, place a sheet of AL foil atop of the mash to conserve heat.
Best case...use a SS lid.

 

If you are going to batch sparge, you may not need a HLT, if you happen to have a spare kettle (perhaps from your partial boil days). I dump straight from a spare kettle (the one the mashout or sparge water has been heating in) into the tun to mashout or sparge.