Which Mash Tun to Buy_10 gallon batches

[LTDbrew]

I need some advice, i am looking to upgrade my 5 gallon all grain batches to 10 gallon batches. I see MoreBeer, Stout Tanks, Spike, Blichmann, etc all have various sizes for Mash Tuns. I have seen the older post regarding "how big does the mash tun need to be", but chart is no longer showing up.

I currently do gravity fed, using the 10 gallon Igloo Cooler and will be upgrading to the single tier, pump driven brewing. I do make mostly big beers (Imperial Stouts, Imperial IPAs, Imperial Alt, etc) and some times make a Pale Ale or regular IPA. So I am torn for which size mash tun, is the MoreBeer 26 gallon going to be too small for a 10 gallon batch size of Pale Ale? Will the Stout 20 Gallon suffice?

I have looked over the internet, used beersmith as a guide and still uncertain. I typically mash between 1.25 - 1.5 qt/lb and have used the Green Bay Rackers calcuator. Again though - i am looking more for personal experiences with these types of mash tuns.

I am thinking a 15 gallon mash tun (Morebeer) will be too small for a 36-38 lbs batch size. Assuming mash out or fly sparge.

Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[cram]

If you're thinking 36-38 pounds of malt then I would suggest a 20-26 gallon mash tun. The HD kettles from Morebeer (I believe they're Fermentap kettles, though) are nice to use for a tun because they are 3 MM thick so they insulate a bit better on their own than the others you mention--they are wider than the other models, though, but built like a tank.

I have the 15 gallon Morebeer tun and it does fine for most ten gallon batches but if you're consistently doing big beers then you might want to go bigger. Most folks don't regret buying bigger kettles...