Beer Forum

I want to buy one rectangle cooler that will do any size gravity up to 1.100 for 10 gallon batches using batch sparging.
did some guessing and my numbers say an 87 qt cooler should do the job.
most coolers come in 70 qt capacities and then jump to 100 qt, anyone have experience doing high gravity 10 gallon batch sparge batches in a 70 qt rectangle cooler.
thanks. are there any down sides to just getting the 100 qt. right off the bat, other than wasted space?

Bite the bullet and get the 100 qt cooler. The extra space won't really make a difference. I use a 52 qt cooler for 1.100+ 5 gallon batches and that gets pretty full so I don't think you will have as much extra space as you might think. You efficiency will drop a bit for big beers so you will need extra grain (and more volume) to allow for that drop.

Wayne

The main drawback would be a shallow grain bed depth in using a larger cooler on a normal gravity beer. I think Palmer recommends a min. 4" grain bed depth.

Shallow grain beds work just fine for batch sparging. They suck big time for fly sparging.

Wayne

i got the 100 qt coleman extreme [EXTREME!!!!!!] cooler at the cabelas store near post falls ID yesterday for $69.99.
regularly $99.99