New kettle

MY wife bought me a new kettle for Christmas. Love the thought. The problem is she was trying to make it as much of a surprise as possible, so she didn't ask for a lot of details. She ended up buying a 20 gallon kettle with thermometer and valve.
This would be great except the rest of my equipment is set up for only 5 gallon batches. I use a cooler for my MLT and HLT. I am thinking of just exchanging for a 10 gallon kettle, but wanted to maybe get some opinions here. Thanks.

20 gallons is pretty big. If it were me I would NOT exchange down to the 5 gallon brewery but I would go to a 12-15 gallon kettle and start brewing double batches x2 the beer in roughly the same amount of time. Unless you have a great pipeline set up and 5 gallon batches are just fine for you, then and only then would I down size to a 8-10 gallon pot. (and possibly weasle in some other needed equipment.)

It would really depend on your beer consumption. I am in a similar debate in the fact that I am looking to buy a couple boilmakers from Blichmann and even though I only want to do 3-5 gal batches right now, do I bite the bullet and fork over the extra cash to have 20 gallon pots. Tough question when you realizing you are already spending 300+ dollars on each pot....

I feel your plight brother. I will graciously exchange you my 10 gallon kettle for your 20.

20 gallons seems like kind of an awkward size. Kinda big for even ten gallon batches. I'd probably exchange it for a 10 and get some ingredients with the extra dough.

JonK331 said:

20 gallons seems like kind of an awkward size. Kinda big for even ten gallon batches. I'd probably exchange it for a 10 and get some ingredients with the extra dough.

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I thought 10 gallons was going to be ample, until I had to do a strong scotch ale with a 9 gallon preboil.

I would keep the 20 gallon kettle, no more boilovers!!
Its overkill, but you never know if you want to start brewing 10 gallon batches...
Or
Keep it as your HLT and do double batches!!

I have a 26gallon kettle and do 15-17 gallon batches in it....

igotsand

dont downgrade the pot.....upgrade everything else!:rockin:
just kiddin, I would go with the 10 gallon brews as well

as far as kettles go bigger is better. No more boil overs as mentioned above. Even if you start doing 10 gallon batches you will not have to worry about boil overs :rockin:

I'd keep it until I could get a mash tun to match it.

If you do downgrade, I wouldn't go smaller than a 15 gallon pot. I rarely do 10 gallon batches, but I love my keggle for 5.5 gallon batches. The previous boil kettle (9.5 gallons) got moved to HLT.

I would not downgrade. A 15 gallon pot is ok for a 10 gallon batch, but 20 is better. A 10 gallon pot is only useful for a 5 gallon batch. You usually need something like 13 gallons of pre-boil wort (depending on your boiloff rate and boil time) to wind up with 10 gallons of wort at the end of the boil.

You may want to do some 10 gallon brews one of these days. So keep that pot. If you really would rather have a 15 gallon pot for your boil kettle, keep the 20 gallon one for you mash tun. With a 15 gallon BK and a 20 gallon MLT, you could mash enough grain for 10 gallon batches of high gravity beer.

I'm using keggles for BK, MLT, and HLT in my 10 gallon brewery right now. The first thing I'll upgrade will be my MLT to a 20 gallon or maybe 25 gallon size so I can brew 10 gallon big beers.

If you are quite certain you'll never want to do 10 gallon batches, then go ahead and downgrade. Then later when you change your mind after all, you can kick yourself in the butt for downgrading.

Good thoughts here everybody. My personal consumption is not that great, but I brew a lot for different events. This has wiped me out in the past. Definitely something to think about. Thanks everybody.

Partition it and mash in one half, boil in the other

Unless there is something else you REALLY need, I would hang on to that pot. No reason to downsize it, as it allows you to be more flexible in the future, as far as size goes. And it still functions just fine for 5 gallon batches. I'm always a fan of getting equipment that will let you be as flexible as possible. There is no downside to this pot, and a huge upside (you can make 10 gallons batches if you ever want to, assuming you have access to an MLT that's big enough).

Keep the 20 gal pot. Look at it this way, the speed limit on the freeway is 65 but there times when you need to go faster. You wouldn't trade your car in for one that tops out at 70 would you?