Do I need a larger Mash Tun?

[garcara]

I know of the Can I Mash It calculator - http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml/ but I am just asking for some opinions as I am not sure of how big of a beer I could end up doing.

I am interested in doing a few Parti-gyle beers over 11%. Right now I use a 10 gallon gatorade cooler. I am thinking of getting another cooler to convert to a tun and then I could use the 10 gallon to hold my wort from the second runnings while I am doing my first boil. I know I don't need 70 quarts, but I am thinking about getting a 70 quart cube cooler so I don't have so much floor space (I guess that's a valid term?) and the grain stacks higher instead of getting like a 62 quart rectangle cooler.

Any suggestions from experience?

 

[DPBISME]

I have a 10 gallon cooler and I think I calculated the most grain I could put in it was about 17 Lbs... that was a single infusion with just enough space to get to Mash Out. When I brewed a 10 Gallon Tripple and Dubbel I had to use some LME and DME to get the OG up.

I now have a larger cooler and can brew these with little trouble...

 

[garcara]

I now have a larger cooler and can brew these with little trouble...

How large is your cooler now? Is it a rectangle cooler?

 

[Piratwolf]

Strange option: Randy Mosher in his Radical Brewing talks about the infamous Doble-Doble... Effectively you mash half the grain, draw off the first runnings, re-heat to strike temps, and the mash the second half of the grain bill with the first runnings of the first mash. I think you could probably sparge both for another med-gravity beer.

If you only want to do huge beers once a year, this would save the $ of a bigger MT, but if it'll be a habit, it may not be worthwhile.