Pot/Kettle shape

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JohanMk1

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I've founds no end of threads discussing the merits of various volumes of kettle.

I found a place today that's selling short fat pots for sensible money. My concern is that almost all the photo's I've seen on here show pots/kettles that are normally taller than they are wide.

Is there a reason for using a tall skinny rather than a short fat one?
 
Yes, there is a reason. As the kettle diameter increases, so does the surface area of the boiling wort. Wider kettles will have more wort boil off. See post #10 here. If the kettle is really wide and short, the boil off for a batch may be excessive. What are the dimensions of the kettle?
 
Kinda like women, tall and thin work fine...but shorter and wider can work very well also :) You need to account for additional boiloff with a shallower pot. It's personal preference, I prefer a taller skinnier pot mostly for a more reasonable footprint.
 
I see that beersmith allows for varying boil off volumes in the brewhouse setup. This leads me to believe that it's not really critical.

I also think that a larger surface area might help with DMS.

The pot is 14.23 gallons filled to the very brim which makes it a bit bigger than I wanted but it's priced very well for South Africa at around $80

It measures 19.4882 inches accross on the inside and is 11 inches deep.
 
Life has happened and I am still kettleless.

I have an opportunity to pick a new 50litre/13.2 gallon coffee urn with a 240v 2500w element. LINKY to a similar model The one I can get is going for under $100

Some of the advantages:
Built in sight glass
built in controll to turn the heat down
has a "plastic tap" which means its predrilled.

The BIG question, is 2.5Kw going to be enough to do 5 gallon BIAB batches?

urn_zps54f1dd7f.jpg
 
I just bought a kettle and found that a wider base allowed me to fit the kettle over 2 gas burners on the stove. Heating time is very decent as a result. A smaller based kettle would only allow one burner and may have trouble getting to a good boil.

Not a concern if the kettle comes with it's own electrics or if you brew outside, but something to consider for any kitchen brewers out there.
 
I just bought a kettle and found that a wider base allowed me to fit the kettle over 2 gas burners on the stove. Heating time is very decent as a result. A smaller based kettle would only allow one burner and may have trouble getting to a good boil.

Not a concern if the kettle comes with it's own electrics or if you brew outside, but something to consider for any kitchen brewers out there.
 
pick a new 50litre/13.2 gallon coffee urn
It'd be a good idea to first see the size and layout of the heating element. It might be too small for this wattage and hence burn the wort. My case, huhh. I bought a similar pot but had to replace it with a 'traditional' one. I will definitely find the way to use it again (like a mash tun for extra big beers) but for now it is in the closet.
 
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