size of my brew kettle

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bennyd

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Ok....I am getting a 5 gallon brew kettle with my kit this week. I know that isn't a big enough kettle to do a full boil. I'm going to start with some partial boils and am already looking at a 7.5 gallon kettle.

My question....would a 7.5 gallon turkey frying pot (stainless steel) from Cabela's work for this purpose? I ask because I have over $50 in reward points to use there and I could potentially get this thing for less than half price.

Any info would be helpful...thanks.
 
yeah that will work just fine, a lot of people use turkey fryers for brewing, the only drawback is the size and weight is sometimes too much to do on the stove, requiring a propane burner setup.
 
Ok...thanks for the info. I've got a gas stove. Will that help?
 
Ok...thanks for the info. I've got a gas stove. Will that help?

Benny,

I'm very new to brewing but do a lot a canning. I think the OP's concerns are two fold.

First is weight. Adding 5 Gal's+ of stuff to an heavy pot is going to make the pot very difficult and potentially unsafe to move especially when filled with boiling stuff. Your stove is much higher of the ground then a propane burner. Also if you had a spill better to have a high volume spill outside than all over the floor, you and any curious pets or children.

The second issue is heating power. Gas stoves put out a out of heat but, much less heat that than a commercial kitchen stove (Much larger gas lines). Alton Brown of Good Eats and others have spoken about using the Propane burner from a Turkey Fryer when you need extremely high heat such as when you want a true restaurant style stir fry.

FYI The owner of my local shop suggested using a enamel canning pot for brewing. I am only going to be working with 5 gallon (Total) batches but I picked up my canning rig for $20.00 at the hardware store and believe it's 24 or 30 qts. I don't no what metal the pot you looking at is but I would recommend against aluminum unless anodized.
 
A turkey pot and burner will do you fine. I got my entire setup from home depot for 40 dollars (open item on sale). But last weekend the weather was crappy out so I decided to brew inside. I have a newer natural gas stove and was able to get a boil going no problem on the stovetop (not as fast or course; but got the boil that I needed). So my suggestion would be to find the full turkey fryer kit (pot and burner) and use it; but test your stovetop with the pot to see if you can get a full boil prior to attempting to brew on it.
 
I use a turkey fryer setup with a 7.5 gallon kettle. It works pretty well for me doing partial mash batches. I had been fighting with boilover a lot, but recently tried out Fermcap and it's amazing. I can now boil 6.5 gals without a drop of boilover.

This is about 35-45 mins into the boil, probably just under 6 gals left in the kettle at this point.
DSC00697.jpg
 
its not the size of your kettle, its the roil in your boil.

but seriously, unless you have a badass stove you'd probably want to get a propane burner that you set up outside.
 
Benny,

I believe have the same 7.5 pot and burner (both stainless) that your are referring to, I use mostly when brewing outdoors. It is the older version of this one (the striped down model $169.95). I have had it for 6 years, I have made countless turkeys many fish fry's and 15 of so brew sessions. I like the stainless burner housing no paint to burn off and on rusty steel.

As for the pot, I have brewed with mine on my gas stove top. But before I go any further I would not recommend boiling large volumes of liquid in a narrow footprint to height ratio pot in any house where small children are present.

Our gas stove top (Whirlpool I think) has a "power burner" which the spec. states that it puts out 12,500 BTU's. I experimented before brewing and found it took 1.5 hours to bring 6.5 gallons of 60 degree water to a rolling boil. I would recommend putting 4.5 gallons of water in your current pot to determine if your stove is capable of first getting that much volume up to boil.

Now you can test our your cooling method on the boiling water, I use a 50' X 1/2" immersion chiller, with 54 deg. tap water I can get it to 70 deg. in under 20 min. Hope this helps. Good Luck.


Cheers...
 
I don't no what metal the pot you looking at is but I would recommend against aluminum unless anodized.

This has been beat to death but I just want to add the thoughts I had this morning while I was cleaning my aluminum pot for its virgin AG batch.
What exactly is it that makes people think brewing in an aluminum pot it taboo? It has already been debunked, but I want to know where this less than accurate idea came from?

I have been in the restaurant industry for 20 years and 75-90% of the cookware in a kitchen is aluminum. We cook all manner of items in aluminum and with the exception of high salt and acid foods, there is no problem.
There is NOTHING in wort that would cause it to react unfavorably with aluminum. I have heard through the grapevine that alcohol and aluminum is a bad idea, but I have no proof.
If one chooses to believe the "facts" tossed around about aluminum I would not try and change your mind, but there is no irrefutable evidence that aluminum cookware is a danger.
 
This has been beat to death but I just want to add the thoughts I had this morning while I was cleaning my aluminum pot for its virgin AG batch.
What exactly is it that makes people think brewing in an aluminum pot it taboo? It has already been debunked, but I want to know where this less than accurate idea came from?

I have been in the restaurant industry for 20 years and 75-90% of the cookware in a kitchen is aluminum. We cook all manner of items in aluminum and with the exception of high salt and acid foods, there is no problem.
There is NOTHING in wort that would cause it to react unfavorably with aluminum. I have heard through the grapevine that alcohol and aluminum is a bad idea, but I have no proof.
If one chooses to believe the "facts" tossed around about aluminum I would not try and change your mind, but there is no irrefutable evidence that aluminum cookware is a danger.

The warning came to me from my LHBS. I was not concerned about the (questionable) link between Alzheimer and aluminum cookware, I was more concerned about the pitting that I had seen during my time in restaurants. I was always told it was acidic ingredients reacting with the aluminum.
 
Well, if it was a general warning of aluminum I can understand, but if it was a specific "Do Not Brew In Aluminum" there is nothing to back that up.
 
Well, if it was a general warning of aluminum I can understand, but if it was a specific "Do Not Brew In Aluminum" there is nothing to back that up.

I'm just getting ready to brew my first batch and certainly have the authority to say don't brew in pot type X. You all could tell me that all beer should be brewed in an unglazed urn and I might buy it :) . My warning was a general one. I hate having cooking pots segregated by food type. I already have that issue with Cast Iron (Again Acidic foods but I still use it. Shhhh) I figure If you can get a stainless pot that meets your need you can use it for beer, broth or borscht and never have a worry.
 
Again, thanks for the advice guys. What I'm gathering is that I should probably stick to partial boils for a while. I'll save up (again) and upgrade to the larger pot and burner to begin full boils.

All of the warnings and concerns are noted. I appreciate them and the knowledge that's been shared here.:mug:
 
Another noob question. Would the 7.5 gallon turkey pot work ok on the stove for doing a partial boil when it's too crappy to boil outside? If it will I'm going to go ahead and purchase the lp burner on amazon tonight and the pot within the next week or so at Cabela's.

Thanks.
 
I can use my pot on the stove top as mentioned above; but the only way to find out if you get a good boil is to check out your BTUS (I have no clue on mine....) or do a test boil with a large pot checking to see if you can get a full boil and how long it takes....
 
Well...I took the plunge. I purchased a Bayou Classic SP-10 high pressure propane cooker from Amazon for $39.96. Instead of the 5 gal kettle with my kit...i am going to make the trip to Cabela's for the 7.5 gal aluminum turkey friying pot. I've read the debate between stainless and aluminum and I really believe that it will work wonderfully. Besides, with my Cabela's reward points.....it will be free!!! Now how can you beat that?:rockin:

I will season the pot on stove with 3 gallons in to see what the boil time will be for a partial boil. I'm not anticipating much of a difference between what it would have been with a 5 gallon pot....but hey I'm a noob. I'll get it figured out eventually....:tank:
 
Thank you bad67s! You know....I probably shouldn't even worry about this new equipment yet since I'm so new. But I'm really anticipating this becoming a longtime hobby. I figured that eventually I'll want to do full boils (especially when it's nice out) and I may eventually want to try all grain which means I already have some of the equipment to make the conversion.

Really there is no difference in price between me doing it this way and getting the kit with 2 cases of bottle and a five gallon brew pot. The only other difference is that I'll only get one recipe kit
 
Enjoy buddy. I did my first couple boils on a stove inside the house... heh, it was a crappy experience. Upgraded to a propane burner and it rips! you might as well go big now. if you dont, you're going to want to in a year or two anyways.
 
Another noob question. Would the 7.5 gallon turkey pot work ok on the stove for doing a partial boil when it's too crappy to boil outside? If it will I'm going to go ahead and purchase the lp burner on amazon tonight and the pot within the next week or so at Cabela's.

Thanks.

I live in NYC, so stovetop is my only option.

The 8 gallon Megapot from Northern Brewer fits over two burners, and I can get 6.5 gallons of wort boiling in 20 minutes. Woot.

So, measure your burners and see if it's possible to get a pot that goes over both.

Also, you SHOULD NOT move a pot full of boiling wort. You're talking about 50+lbs of danger here. Spend the $30 on an immersion chiller if you're going full boil.

End psa.
 
One thing I wanted to add that I haven't seen on this thread; use a lid on you kettle when getting your water up to temperature. I have to watch it carefully, but this really speeds up my brew sessions. Once I add any ingredients, I stop using the lid.

Good luck.
 
Cool....thanks for the tips. I am going to invest in the wort chiller. I figured that this is stuff that I'd end up upgrading to anyway. Might as well get the kinks out now.

This stuff can't get here fast enough:ban:
 
Oh....and wendel....how much of that snow are you guys enjoying in NYC?
 
I use my wife's enamel canning pot (32 Qt) on the kitchen (gas) stove using 2 burners at once. The downside is it is so wide that I lose a lot of wort when siphoning the wort off the trub.
 
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