Brew Kettles & Brewmometers (Thermometers)

From all the advertisements I have seen, brewpots with 2 valves (for a ball valve and a thermometer) always have the 2 valves stacked (arranged in a line running up and down, as opposed to next to each other).

Why are valves not next to each other?
The problem with stacked valves is if you use a large pot, say 20 gallons, for a smaller batch, say 5 gallons. The thermometer is close to the top of the wort, and after the boil, when chilling with an immersion chiller may be right at the water level.

Why not have the thermometer placed lower, so it can be used on smaller batches?
Why not have the thermometer placed low, so that its 2 inces from the bottom?

(I assume the solution is DIY, get a kit and place the thermometer where you like.)

Any suggestions on brew kettles with side by side valves? Or maybe some very long thermometer you can clip onto teh side of a 20 gallon kettle?

Hmm...I didn't realize they were always stacked. I've got my thermometer and sight gauge about 20º to the right of my ball valve. No problems.

>>Hmm...I didn't realize they were always stacked. I've got my thermometer and sight gauge about 20º to the right of my ball valve. No problems.

What brand of kettle? Do you like it? Do you have a link to the seller?

ArcLight said:

>>Hmm...I didn't realize they were always stacked. I've got my thermometer and sight gauge about 20º to the right of my ball valve. No problems.

What brand of kettle? Do you like it? Do you have a link to the seller?

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It's just a plain ol' megapot. I drilled the holes myself. Works fine and dandy for me. It heats well and efficiently and was reasonably easy to drill. It's wider than most brewpots tend to be, but that was necessary for my brewspace.

>. It's wider than most brewpots tend to be, but that was necessary for my brewspace.
The 20 gallon is 17 inches wide, that seems less wide than the PolarWare

ArcLight said:

>. It's wider than most brewpots tend to be, but that was necessary for my brewspace.
The 20 gallon is 17 inches wide, that seems less wide than the PolarWare

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Polarwares tend to be pretty wide too. That said, mine's only a 10gal, so I don't know anything about their larger pots. But, there's no problem side-by-side mounting.

The engineers that designed the pots were probably not brewers.

I was wondering if putting a thermometer near the bottom of the kettle would give a false (hot) reading with a propane heat source on the kettle. Looking at doing a Spike 15 gallon kettle and initially only doing 5 gallon batches, but having the therm stacked would make that totally impractical. I suppose the counter argument would be to use a good floating thermometer to monitor the water temp.. Thoughts?

Bobby_M said:

The engineers that designed the pots were probably not brewers.

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Blichmann does the same thing, stacking the thermometer above the valve and their claim to fame/high prices is that their brewpots are designed by brewers :-/