Copper Kettles

Has anyone had any experience with one of these:

Caldwell Mountain Copper
Apple Butter Kettle, 20gal for $500,
http://www.caldwellmtncopper.com/CopperGallery.htm

D Picking & Co
Apple, Caramel, and Flat Bottom kettles.
http://www.dpicking.net/products.htm
(though i believe the flat bottom pot is for decorative purposes)

Any reason you want a copper pot? I don't think many on here use copper when stainless is cheaper.

There are advantages to copper. It would conduct heat better than stainless and is just as sanitary. Also, I read in Palmer's book that it was a good idea to have a little copper in the pot. So I would put a small piece of copper tubing in my pot when I was extract brewing. The main disadvantage that I can see is cost. Stainless would be considerably cheaper. I think that I would go with stainless because of the cost differential.

I have keggles now, i'm just pondering the propane cost/energy savings with the increased conductivity of copper (26x better). Per brew day we're going through $50-$60 in propane, it wouldn't take long to break even and the time savings would go to reducing SWIMBO angst.

outside92129 said:

I have keggles now, i'm just pondering the propane cost/energy savings with the increased conductivity of copper (26x better). Per brew day we're going through $50-$60 in propane, it wouldn't take long to break even and the time savings would go to reducing SWIMBO angst.

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How big are your batches? We normally make 20- 25gal sometimes up to 40 depending on how many of us are brewing...I don't normally go threw 1 bottle of gas...

A copper kettle would have a little bit of a coolness factor though..gota admit

outside92129 said:

I have keggles now, i'm just pondering the propane cost/energy savings with the increased conductivity of copper (26x better). Per brew day we're going through $50-$60 in propane, it wouldn't take long to break even and the time savings would go to reducing SWIMBO angst.

Click to expand...

That's a lot of gas. When I used propane I think it cost $75 to fill a 100lb tank. How large of a batch are you doing? You must be losing a ton of heat that doesn't go into the wort. I would play with burner spacing and other factors before going to copper. Although heat conductivity is better with copper, it doesn't actually perform noticeably better in real world situations.

a brew day for us is four 10-12gal batches, and we go through about ~2.5 five gal tanks. If we're going to get the stink eye from our better halves we cram them into one long day instead of having 4 days of stink eye : )

Using BG-14's but not fully open on SS keggles. Changed the height of the burner/keg from 4" (on the KAB-4) to 2"...