aluminum vs. stainless brew pots?

how critical is it to use stainless, rather than aluminum for a brew pot?

thanks.

Its only as critical as your pocketbook.

Wild

Both of my large pots are aluminum and I've never noticed anything inferior due to that. From what I understand aluminum is softer and therefore easier to scratch = harder to clean - supposedly. I guess if you plan on scraping your pot every day with a metal fork then yeah, go with stainless. I don't know which holds up better to heat in the long run, but aluminum transfers heat more evenly.

IMHO I'd go for buy as big as you can afford and then concern yourself about the metal.

I know youre a noob here, but PLEASE try the search function. This gets covered every week I think.

Tophe said:

I know youre a noob here, but PLEASE try the search function. This gets covered every week I think.

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It gets interchanged with "Plastic or Glass". So I think it's bi-weekly.

And to answer coyote's question. Aluminum passivates, ie develops an oxide coating, so in fact your beer does not actually touch the aluminum.

appreciate the replies.

Tophe, you're right of course.

(I thought the point of a beginners' forum was to get answers to stupid noob questions...why I posted it here instead of the general forum)

Yeah....I didnt realize it was in the beginners forum til after I posted. FYI though, you can find alot of info using the search for commonly asked questions.

Youll get more info than just asking the question.....

btw...welcome to HBT! My personal preference is SS, never used aluminum though to compare.

Not again.....

homebrewer_99 said:

Not again.....

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YES! man maybe this time we'll get to page 10

LOL!

sorry guys

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!


Oh, ah, sorry.

I use an aluminum pot. A couple advantages are #1 it is a lot cheaper and #2 aluminum transfers heat much better than stainless. I have to imagine that SS would last longer, but I don't see my pot going bad any time soon. Also as said above aluminum oxidizes, especially under heat. Do 1 brew and most of the inside of the pot has a coating of Al2O3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_oxide

Best pot would have to be a copper one, or best a copper bottom pot with the rest being stainless. Actually a silver bottom would be best but that would be worse than copper $$$ wise.

Check out this site for the thermal conductivity of metals: http://www.engineersedge.com/properties_of_metals.htm
In fact look at SS vs Al, SS with a thermal conductivity of 8.09-8.11 depending on the alloy vs Al at 136BTU/(hr-ft-*F)

Hwat we need is when you hit "new posts" the bigeiner forums glow or flash or something. (nothing against newbs, but sometimes you miss that it;s the newb section)

Dennys Fine Consumptibles said:

Hwat we need is when you hit "new posts" the bigeiner forums glow or flash or something. (nothing against newbs, but sometimes you miss that it;s the newb section)

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Looks like we could use a spell checker too.

cormi3r said:

Looks like we could use a spell checker too.

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FF has one built in.

What about bleach? Lets get into it!

Don't you get some kind of reaction, using bleach in an aluminum pot? I know you do, in a SS pot!

steve

what was that about brass causing a reaction?

I would think the bleach would oxidize the aluminum.

yeah, i noticed my turkey tasted slightly differnt, so i spent alot of money to get a stainless pot and everyone said it tasted so much better....................?
if your that anal ..............

but if you didn't tell them you switched pots, I bet they would have said nothing and "noticed" nothing.

skou said:

Don't you get some kind of reaction, using bleach in an aluminum pot? I know you do, in a SS pot!

steve

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Bleach and aluminum don't mix well at all. Why would you sanitize your BOIL kettle with chemicals anyway? The heat does that work for you.

...and...for the record...noooooooooooo! not again!!!

Yuri, this may be the end all thread on this as long as it's lasting. Maybe everything is covered here.

Oh wait, I know a sticky. 1 aluminum vs SS and
2 Is my batch ruined? And that thread, there is 1 reply, it says NO! and then locked. lol

That's IT? a measly 3 pages...that's all we can muster?
sheesh
<kicks can>

It's funny, I just bought my equip and was told by everyone including the brew store owner that aluminum was a bad move. What do I know, I'm just the new guy so I've been looking at all SS pots this last week. Brewed with a friend's 30qt SS on Sat so I haven't gotten the pot yet.

I use Al and am not dead yet. No off flavors either.

Funny thing, the micro I used to work at, we had to leave right after we finished brewing, and the head brewer said to put a half-cup of bleach in the brew kettle, so it wouldn't get funky until the next day.

Well, a couple weeks later, guess what? We had a pinhole leak.

Now, how about fermenting in bleach, and brewing in plastic pots?

(Steve ducks, to avoid flying beer bottles!)

steve