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Mash/Lauter Tun size and Grain Bed Depth

leahy268

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Hi Guys,

Heres the thing.  I currently have handy and freely available a 55 L Rectangular cooler to make a Lauter Tun out of. 
I don't plan on making bigger than a 22L or 5 Gal batch of beer at a time.
I have previously been doing some extracts w/ steeping and partial mashes.
However the more I read the more I think why not go the whole hog and do all grain.
The thing is this.  Should I be making the dimensions of my Lauter Tun smaller so that I get a deeper grain bed?
For example building a wall into one side.  Easy enough to do.
Or is there a better way that someone can think of?

Any help you can give me would be great.

Thanks

Warwick
 
My personal opinion is the cylindrical shaped coolers are the best shape.  Some people prefer rectangular.  Smaller is better - match your cooler size to the beer batch size to get a good bed depth.  Normally, you would use about 2/3 to 3/4 of the volume during mashing.  A 5 gal. Igloo works great for 5 gal beer batches - typically about 10lbs of grain and 3.5 gal of water makeup the mash. 
 
Even when batch sparging, I still recirculate the first couple quarts of each running to establish a filter bed.  It helps to removes proteins and small suspended particles from the wort before going into the boiling pot.
 
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