Why not cylindrical like kegs? Tradition?
Barrels were designed that way to allow them to be steered when rolling, try rolling and directing 225 litres in a cylinder.
As for casks is it to let crud settle in the belly?
Works for kegs though
my belly's getting kinda cask shaped, and it's great for holding beer.
Quote from: iTube on December 05, 2013, 11:41:13 PMIf they were cubes they'd still be easy enough to handle.
They always claim this is bad because corners would become breeding grounds for bacteria but yet some breweries used(and still do) square FVs. Never understood that.
Cubes aren't good for rolling though, which is handy in a cellar/warehouse.
Corners only become breeding grounds if the are not cleaned properly, Cylinders are a trade off between the strong sphere and the stackable cube? :-\
If you've ever been in a pub cellar in the UK you might have seen the full sized barrels they are up to your shoulders almost when standing on end, I can imagine they'd be very difficult to manouver if they were cylindrical.
I also think it's a throwback to the wooden sparred coopered barrels and was just a copy of those in metal, presumably fitting racks etc that were already in place from older setups.
Its worth researching. I think that there are multiple sizes of casks, and an interesting one is called a 'Firkin' - 40L I think.
I believe these got their name from the brew pub chain of the same name. That chain is no longer around, but the design of their kegs, and the cellars they were meant to fit in, still survive.
I suspect that the cask shape may have allowed it to be made of less metal, and like some people have mentioned, allowed it to be handled easy in small cellars.
Now that you mention it, I saw an article going through brewing history that listed the size of vessels, used to dispense beer.
If thats the case, the metal firkin would have evolved from a wooden one, and there would likely have been a pressing requirement to keep similar form factor (e.g. stacking, warehousing, and cellar/racking).
Cant find it now, following a few too many blogs that delve in historical matters.
Old measurement system,
Pin 1/8 Barrel = 4.5 Gallons,
Firkin 1/4 Barrel = 9 Gallons,
Kilderkin 1/2 barrel = 18 Gallons,
Barrel 1 Barrel ::) = 36 Gallons.
It's the barrel I'm talking about, you still see them in UK.
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1. A cask needs to be water tight:
Wooden casks have been built that way beacause its the only design wherby the hoops can exert a compressive force on the staves at each position they are located. This squeezes the timber together by applying radial inwards force on the staves. A slight tap will locally increase the pressure as required.
A cylindical wooden cask would not be practical!
Result: A water tight container
2. Moving the casks arround:
The elliptical shape of the cask allows it to easily rolled as the almost single point contact reduces friction to a minimum and are dead easy to steer. A rolling ss keg needs a bit of a kick to change direction!
3. Getting into the cellar:
Most trad. pubs have a trapdoor in the pavement and an inclined plane consiusting of timber from pavement to cellar. Between the two rails are a set of steps to allow the draymen ingress and eggress.
Why is there a big steel ring set into the head of the flight? This is to allow the cask to be gently lowered down the incline using a double piece of rope. This technique is called "Parbuckling"
4. Getting a cask onto the stillage:
The fact that the cask is elliptical allows it to tilt down wards and then other end can be flipped onto the stillage. This effectively halves the weight of the cask. This is how I got the GB RIS casks into and out of my stillage.
5. Getting the last drop from the cask:
Again due to its shape it can be tilted in the stillage to help drain the cask
So that is why a cask is cask shapped and new metal or plastic casks still have to tick boxes 2 - 4
BTW: The Firkin is also a unit of excess:
As in "This sack is too Ferkin heavy" or "It's too Ferkin far away to walk"