Amazon has the 70 qt xtreme for $40 and free shipping right now:
The 100 quart one comes with wheels, $75. You could probably fit 75 lbs of grain in that! ;D I’ve been needing a new cooler anyway, and I’m a fan of the wheels. According to coleman.com, it’s got the drain channel too.
Amazon.com
But I think I’m going to get the 70 qt one and see how it goes. I actually intend to use it as a cooler, not as a mash tun! :o
And then one day soon at a nice picnic you’ll be standing their admiring your 70 qt cooler and you’ll start thinking, “I could just put a little braid in there…”
Jeff, the first step is to admit you have a problem! ;)
The round cooler will work fine for batch sparging, but I find a rectangular is much easier to use due to the larger opening. They don’t cost much, so my recommendation would be to just get a rectangular and avoid possibly having to change down the road.
I am going to use the old round one just to see how it goes. Also thinking of making a Fred Bonjour beer, you know, really really big. So the plan is to use the 1/2 barrel mash tun and the rubbermaid cooler to add to the grain bill. This was just with the stuff on hand, if I want to do more then I can get the Coleman Extreme.
Sounds like a plan!
I mash in a converted keg though, so there’s really no need to change. Although it would fit more grain . . . or if I wanted to do a second mash . . . 
Key is to collect lots of wort at a very high fermentability, then boil it down to volume, long boil, another key.
Fred, I have been paying attention! Of late, I have been looking at some of the Thomas Hardy recipes that are in some books I have. It might be fun to try something like that.
Just got around to reading the latest issue.
Nice article Denny!!! Even my wife chuckled when saw the byline. “Is that the Denny from the forums you spend so much time reading?” she said. Like it’s a bad thing.
Keep 'em coming because I still have lots to learn.
I found a blue Coleman Extreme (I can’t recall the exact size at the moment, just big) this summer at K-Mart. They had them on sale for $39 or so.
If you need to get your braid closer to the bottom in a cooler without a drain recess you can use 2 45 deg. copper elbows fitted together and drop it about 3/4". I did that in a smaller cooler I used for awhile.
Paul
The article is great - thanks for putting that together. It’s an article that almost everybody can get something out of. I was really happy to see it listed on the cover and even more excited to find that you had written it.
I have a question about the water temperatures listed in the “A Batch Sparge Walkthrough” section. I usually brew with 12-15 lbs of grain in a 10 gallon cooler. I heat the mash water to about 78-80 deg C, add it to the cooler, and let it cool to around 74 deg C before I add the grain. This usually gets me a mash temp around 65 deg C. I’ll then fly sparge with water at about 77 deg C. I have done a batch sparge only twice, and the target temps I used were the same as when I fly sparge. I am going to do a brew on Sunday and am going to batch sparge it. You have listed the mash and batch sparge water at 85-88 deg C, which seems kinda high to me. Do you need those higher temps to account for the complete draining of the tun? Is there something I’m missing?
Nope, you’re not missing anything. For the mash, use whatever temp you usually like to use, and account fopr the thermal mass of the cooler and grain in your normal way. For the sparge, I like to try to get my grainbed up to about 168F if I can. To do that, I use sparge water that’s about 185-190. I don’t know if there’s really an advantage to doing that, but it’s my SOP. I suppose that since you drain the tun before the sparge there may be less residual heat there than if there was still water in it. Basically, use whatever temps work for you…my article was intended to be only a general guideline for temps.
great article! no other comment.
Thanks for the info, and the quick response. I’m really looking forward to this batch. I’ll keep an eye out for more of your articles.
Denny, I haven’t read all the responses so I don’t know if this was brought up.
Up until yesterday, I’ve been using a brewing calculator for my strike and sparge water calculations. I usually ended up with about 8 gallons of preboil wort with my method which consisted of 3-4 gallons of strike water and 5-6 gallons of sparge water, depending on recipe. I would never try and split strike and sparge water 50/50 (like your method). Usually, my way had great efficiencies but my gravity would be a few points low. Your way, yesterday, gave me a more accurate OG. Did that make the difference?
I can’t say for sure, but it’s entirely possible it did. You’d need to repeat exactly the same batch and procedure a few times to be certain, though.
If I perfect your method, I’m starting to wonder if I can pull off 10 gallon batches in my 52qt mash tun.
Hi Denny,
I have a question regarding your article on batch sparging. I have been fly sparging and anything to cut the time down on brew day would be great. My mash tun is a 10 gallon pot with a false bottom. The false bottom takes 1.25 gallons to fill. If I use this set up to batch sparge how do I account for the extra water in the false bottom. It seems most people batch sparging use a mesh screen instead of a false bottom.
I batch sparge a bit differently, and I don’t calculate.
- mash normally
- drain mash tun into boil kettle (after clearing the wort/vorlaufing)
- measure the wort in the kettle
- add either the full amount remaining or half the amount remaining
- repeat as necessary from item 2.
Works every time and no worry about dead space.
Boy, that’s one I haven’t dealt with! I assume you;d account for it the same way you do for fly sparging. Is there much dead space or does it drain completely?