Another turkey fryer question

I've read a bit on here about turkey fryers and have been thinking about getting one (also, the wife is bugging me about the smell during the boils!) Anyway, is the aluminum pot that comes with the kits from HD or Lowe's or Dick's ok to brew in? Or should I use my usual stanless steel pot I've been using? I don't have a wort chiller (yet) so I'll probably still be doing half boils. Although this would give me an excuse to buy a chller, or better yet try and make one.

Thanks

Absolutely ok to brew in.

Look here for more info:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Is_aluminum_safe_for_brewing?

Blackhawkbrew said:

Although this would give me an excuse to buy a chller, or better yet try and make one.

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Brew with confidence, that aluminum pot is fine.

And buy that wort chiller. (You're going to end up buying it eventually anyhow, why not enjoy it now!)

I need both. Three and a half hours to extract brew is BS...........

the only down side to that aluminum pot is its durability. usually those 'came with the fryer' pots are extremely thin walled. it makes it difficult to add a weldless drain valve as the walls flex too much once drilled.
and you need to be careful about pouring it, mainly if you use the edge of the counter as a leverage point, you may dent the pot.

beyond that, I'd boil some water in it once, just to get the dark oxidation to form so there is no interaction with the acidic wort.

malkore said:

the only down side to that aluminum pot is its durability. usually those 'came with the fryer' pots are extremely thin walled. it makes it difficult to add a weldless drain valve as the walls flex too much once drilled.
and you need to be careful about pouring it, mainly if you use the edge of the counter as a leverage point, you may dent the pot.

beyond that, I'd boil some water in it once, just to get the dark oxidation to form so there is no interaction with the acidic wort.

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Not sure what you've seen, but the one I just picked up has a pretty substantial wall thickness.

Mine seems more thin on the bottom, not the sides so much. But the thing wasn't heavy duty either. I already dented it and I haven't even brewed with it yet!

The couple books that I have read tell me not to use aluminum Pots because they add off flavors. However, everyone in here says it doen't effect it at all. I wish I would have known that before I bought my $40 stainless steal brewpot, because at Meijer that have the turky fryer on clearance for $18, and I put it down because of the stupid book.

I've been using a couple of those cheap walmart turkey fryer sets for over a year. They've performed great---though one has a hole in its LPG tubing, so I picked this baby up at home depot over the weekend:



150k BTU's instead of the 55k that the turkey fryers have.

The only real drawback to the fryer kits is that once you move to all-grain brewing and full boils, the 30qt kettle that comes with the turkey fryer kits is not really big enough. But the kettles are still nice to have around. I still mash in them and use them to heat up my strike & sparge water. But if I were you, I'd also get yourself a nice big aluminum kettle. I paid $70 at Instawares for a 15 gallon aluminum kettle (shipped!) and it's one of the best things I ever did.

The home depot is lying. According to bayouclassicdepot.com, the SQ14 is only 55k BTU (unless you upgrade the regulator to a 15 or 20PSI from the stock 10PSI one).

That being said, I used my SQ14 to bring 13gal of wort to a boil on Saturday without a problem.

I was advised by my LHBS to use only stainless steel pots. I bought a stainless steel turkey fryer at Acadamy sports. It was more exspensive than the allmium one.

Zappa42 said:

I was advised by my LHBS to use only stainless steel pots. I bought a stainless steel turkey fryer at Acadamy sports. It was more exspensive than the allmium one.

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Your LHBS was mistaken.

I made my wort chiller for around $20 from soft copper tubing and a litte ideas sampling. Just ask someone at home depot fro a compression coupling that would fit your copper tubing and tell them that you want to hook it up to a garden hose. Then when you get your copper curl it around a paint can and fix the two ends. Just take a look at my wort chiller. Tell me what you think.

Oh that's real mature, playing with your chiller like that. OK maybe I've done that too. A suggestion would be to make sure that all the coils actually touch the wort to maximize their cooling capacity.

Evan! said:

The only real drawback to the fryer kits is that once you move to all-grain brewing and full boils, the 30qt kettle that comes with the turkey fryer kits is not really big enough. But the kettles are still nice to have around. I still mash in them and use them to heat up my strike & sparge water. But if I were you, I'd also get yourself a nice big aluminum kettle. I paid $70 at Instawares for a 15 gallon aluminum kettle (shipped!) and it's one of the best things I ever did.

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Do you have a link to the kettle you bought? I searched on Instawares and didn't find anything.

We are looking to go all grain, but the kettle seems to be a bit of sticking point for us. I wish that the kettle that comes with the turkey fryer would be big enough, but everyone seems to say that it wouldn't be for a 5 gallon batch.

I plan on doing my first AG within a week using the 30qt pot. May not be easy, but I don't like the idea of spending loads of cash on a kettle (not yet anyway). I'll just have to be careful for boilovers. Very careful.

But that's just me... if you want a 15 gallon aluminum kettle, here's the page at instawares:

http://www.instawares.com/60-qt-aluminum-stock-pots.7972.5.4756.0.0.8.htm

ok, so using aluminum is ok but what about if I have fried 10 or so turkeys in it? not matter how much I scrub I can still smell grease. in all honesty I wouldn't brew in it for fear of off flavors but I wonder if anyone has brewed in aluminum after frying bird?

9/9 said:

We are looking to go all grain, but the kettle seems to be a bit of sticking point for us. I wish that the kettle that comes with the turkey fryer would be big enough, but everyone seems to say that it wouldn't be for a 5 gallon batch.

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FWIW, I've done a dozen or more AG batches in a 30qt turkey fryer and never had a boilover. I normally start with just under 6.5 gallons and boil down to 5.25. Obviously I have to watch the pot very carefully, but once it's stabilized to a nice rolling boil everything is fine.

So while it's not optimal, your turkey fryer will work OK until you get something better. I wouldn't let it hold you back. (And I wouldn't turn my back on it!)

Try oxyclean and let it soak overnight. Use about 1 scoop per gallon ( the small blue scoop). You might need to re-pacify the aluminum after though.

There's a quick way to pacify the aluminum but I don't remember it.

BlindLemonLars said:

FWIW, I've done a dozen or more AG batches in a 30qt turkey fryer and never had a boilover. I normally start with just under 6.5 gallons and boil down to 5.25. Obviously I have to watch the pot very carefully, but once it's stabilized to a nice rolling boil everything is fine.

So while it's not optimal, your turkey fryer will work OK until you get something better. I wouldn't let it hold you back. (And I wouldn't turn my back on it!)

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Thanks. That makes me feel better. Lets hope that AG is nearby for us.