Cylindrical vs. Rectangular Cooler for Mash Tun?

Doing a 10 gal batch could be a tall order even with a 10 gallon cylindrical cooler, especially if you are doing higher-gravity beers. I could barely do 12 or 13 lbs of grain in my 5-gallon, and my 10-gallon is more or less maxed out at 22 or 24 lbs (for a 5.5-gallon batch).

If you are doing a Scotch ale or imperial stout, and want 10 gallons, you will need something way more capacious than a 10-gallon cylindrical. A big chest cooler may be the best option.

 

Aside from the obvious size restrictions of the round coolers, it depends on your mode of lautering as well.

The deeper grain bed of the water cooler type mash tuns will lend better to fly sparing for sure. It will be better for the grain bed.

I use a 10gal igloo. I can get around 23 pounds of grain in there, and get around 1.125 max OG for a 5 gal batch I think. I don't see myself making much bigger, so it's easy to go that route.

If you plan to batch sparge, I'm sure both will be just fine. Think about what your max end would be in batch size, and OG, and look around.

 

What everyone said above plus this calculator. http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml The third calculator is a "Can You Mash It?" calculator.

 

Same here with my 5 gal cooler. Batches are reduced in size above around 13lbs of grain and around ~8% ABV. But since I usually brew beers below this threshold, it's not a huge problem.

The main problem with a square cooler is that it's really hard to find square bottles to put your beer into later.

 

If you have Beersmith, it has a water volume needed section. Thats how I decide on 5 or 10 gal batches. Another problem with the square cooler is lack of false bottom. Makes fly sparging a little difficult. But I'm sure it's done.

 

I don't think it really makes any inherent difference what shape it is for a given size, at least at home brew scale (there can and are arguments about pro-size for wide and shallow versus narrow and tall tuns and fermenters.)
I have a 48qt rectangular that has plenty of room. I do brew 5 gal batches, but I believe there would be room in my tun to do a 10 gallon batch at roughly 1.070 SG. Haven't tried it, don't plan to anytime soon, just going by eyeballing.

 

Extrapolating from my own system*... 1.070 is borderlining on your max OG without requiring any fudging, alteration, creativity, specialized engineering adaptations, or help from alien entities (tonight on "learning channel.")

If you don't mind fudging the water to grain ratio and sparging procedure a little, 1.070 is probably do-able for a five gallon batch on most systems with a five gallon cooler (or 10/10). If you go considerably above that, you'll sooner or later HAVE to reduce your batch size, or make major procedure alterations.

*caveats: many

 

Exactly... I'm working with a 12 gallon cooler / tun and I did say that I was guestimating it, based on my 5 gallon batches and how full the cooler is with mash.
I'm not planning on brewing 10 gallons that high - the only thing right now that I would consider is my pale ale (Based on the New Albion from McAuliffe as rebrewed by Sam Adams a couple years back) and that is around 1.055 OG. (measured by 2 brews of that so far)
12 lbs of grain came to 16 qts strike water, doubling that would be 8 gallons water, 24 lbs grain. It would be really close in there, but I think it could be done. LIke I said, I'm not planning on it any time soon, just looking at numbers.