Grain amounts in 10 gal. cooler MLT setup for allgrain

Hello all!

Woohoo!  I am some tubing and a fitting or two from having my allgrain system set up.  I am using Rubbermaid 10 gal coolers in my system. I also have a 10 gallon pot for boiling the wort.  I figured on doing 7-8gallon batches each time.  I'm curious though, for those out there with a similar setup, what is the largest amount (weight wise) of grain anyone has ever been able to mash in coolers like these?  From what I have seen on various forums I am aware that as you go higher in gravity there is more grain and that translates into smaller batches in the end depending on ones brewing setup.  How far off base am I?

Thanks
Lupulin Junkie

If you open the Mash Profile Details dialog box, it shows the mash tun volume required of the recipe in the upper right corner.  If you have the right equipment selected, you could add grains until that maxed out and exceeded 10 gallons.  Since it is water and grain, it largely depends on your water ratio. 

As the mass in the MLT increases, extraction efficiency decreases, so on really big batches you'd want to assume lower extraction. 

You should be fine for most large batches. I have two MT's, one for 10G batches and really big beers and a 10Gallon mt for the rest. I can make a 5.5Gallon Strong Scotch Ale (1.143og) in my 10g mt, but as ML stated extraction ratio goes down so I usually use the larger mt for big beers.

Cheers
Preston

The most I've done is 26 lbs of grain in a 10 gallon cooler. I used a decoction method to achieve my mash out temp of 169 instead of adding hot water which would have overflowed.  This equated to 13.5 gallons of wort boiled in a keggle, and with that, carefully at first.

I would be a bit concerned about your 10 gallon boil kettle for a 7-8 gallon batch.  You may be a bit small on the boil end for that size batch.