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I need a mash tun to make 15g batches. I need your advice on what size/type of cooler and hardware I will need to make my mash tun. I am not planning on making 15g of barley wine, mostly beers in the 5-7% range.

I use a 100q tun...may be good for 15g batches?

How many lbs of grain would u use? 30lbs? How much mash water?

I have the 72 qt version of Justin's cooler and it will easily do 15 gallon batches with batch sparging. The difference in price is negligible though so might as well go bigger and avoid spills when stirring your mash. I have a bazooka screen instead of the stainless braid it is attached to the generic stainless cooler bulkhead available from any homebrewshop and then to a two piecer ball valve with a cam lock quick disconnect. I find it work great now that I do malt conditioning, before I would get clogs sometimes. If I had to do it over again I think I would consider Jimmy's old set up of a cooler with a BIAB bag and a street elbow as a pick up so that you would have no losses to deadspace.

I'll keep looking for a good deal on a large cooler. Haven't seen any good deals lately. I think I'll try to find something around 100qt.

Celiacbrew wrote:I have the 72 qt version of Justin's cooler and it will easily do 15 gallon batches with batch sparging. The difference in price is negligible though so might as well go bigger and avoid spills when stirring your mash. I have a bazooka screen instead of the stainless braid it is attached to the generic stainless cooler bulkhead available from any homebrewshop and then to a two piecer ball valve with a cam lock quick disconnect. I find it work great now that I do malt conditioning, before I would get clogs sometimes. If I had to do it over again I think I would consider Jimmy's old set up of a cooler with a BIAB bag and a street elbow as a pick up so that you would have no losses to deadspace.

I'd be curious on the max gravity you could brew for 15 gallons in a 72qt cooler. When I was using one I maxed out at 1.065 for a 10 gallon batch.

jeffsmith wrote: I'd be curious on the max gravity you could brew for 15 gallons in a 72qt cooler. When I was using one I maxed out at 1.065 for a 10 gallon batch.

I don't actually know never having done a 15 gallon batch. I've only gone to 12 gallons. But I can confirm it will hold slightly less than 20kg of grain, which I think would be around 1.065 max gravity at 15 gallons. I wonder what the difference between our processes would be to account for such a large difference? It is probably measurement error on my part and maybe different points when we judge the cooler to be full. I get pretty messy in my driveway.

Could be mash thickness that's the difference.

jeffsmith wrote:Could be mash thickness that's the difference.

That's probably the difference. OP on reflection my cooler is probably too small, so make sure you go bigger.