Megapot 1.2

I’m considering purchasing this in a 10 gallon to use for partial mash and then eventually to double as a mash tun when I move to all grain. Does anyone have any experience with this? The user reviews don’t offer a whole lot. I have a friend that has the original megapot and he said the thermometer was too high to monitor water temps for partial mash or extract brews.

Hey there. I don’t have any experience with the megapot, but I recently moved to partial mashing from extract w/specialty grains. From my limited experience, I would say that a 10-gallon MT is a little big for PM. Figure you’ll be mashing, at most, 4 or 5 lbs of grain with 5-6 quarts water or so. You’ll be using about an eighth of that giant kettle and it may make it harder to maintain your mash temp.

After 3 PMs with my 6 gallon stock pot, I decided to pick up a cylindrical 2-gallon Igloo cooler with a spigot on the bottom. These can be used without any modifications for mashing and sparging your PMs. Preheat the igloo by pouring in some hot water, then dump it out before your mash. Add your mash water to the igloo when it’s at strike temp, dough in slowly, monitor temp to make sure you’re at/close to your mash temp, then put the lid on. They maintain temp great for 60-90 minutes. You can use the spigot to vorlauf until your first runnings are clear. Pour your first runnings into a 1/2 gallon of boiling water to mimic a mash out. Then you batch sparge with the igloo as well. Just pour in your sparge water right on top of your grain bed in the igloo, stir it up, put on the lid and let sit 5-10 minutes. Then again, use the spigot to vorlauf until its clear and then collect your second runnings into your kettle. Top up your kettle to your normal boil volume and proceed with the boil as usual.

Sorry for the spiel. I just suspect you’ll pay a lot less for a cooler than you would a Megapot and your efficiency would probably be better. But I’m no expert, so take it with a grain of salt.

Thanks for the feedback. I’m really partial mashing as an intermediate and will likely move to all grain this year…so the megapot is really for the all grain and not the PM, but if i could use it for that once or twice i would.

If you are going AG, a 10 gal Megapot 1.2 is a great choice (assuming you are planning on 5 gal batches). You should also be able to do very nice BIAB batches (of the 3 gal+ variety) as well. You will also be able to still do partial mash versions, but you will probably want (and now be able to) do full wort boils.