5 gal cooler too big

[gonpce]

I,m going to start doing partial mash brews (5 gal batches) and read that your cooler could be too big. will a 5 gal round cooler be too large for partial mash batches. Should I get a 3 or 4 gal square cooler?

 

[mikeysab]

Do you intend to eventually move to all grain? If so, the five would be the better choice. It will work fine for pm's

 

[bad67z]

Not familiar with the process of using a cooler for partial mash, but if getting up to or maintaining temp is a concern do to the size/mass, you could always preheat it with hot water.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

5 gals is fine for PM batches, you can even do some AG batches with smaller grain bills with it. I used a 5 gal tun for quite awhile and was able to mash ~12 lbs of grain in there. I did plenty of ~5 gal batches, all grain, and if the grain bill was over ~11 lbs, I either scaled the batch down, supplemented with some DME (partial mash) and on a few occasions, split the mash into two vessels. Worked great. That said, in the future, you'll probably want a larger mash tun. I recently moved up to a ten gal cooler so I could handle most any grain bill for ~5 gal batches.

 

[kh54s10]

When I do partial mash, I also do partial boil in a 20qt pot on the stove. I heat my oven to mash temp then put the pot in there. It holds the temperature very well.

If you plan to go all grain the 5 gallon cooler will be a little limiting.