Is a 9 gallon brew kettle big enough?

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jasonclick

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I've done a few extract batches. Now I want to put together equip for all grain. I'm looking to buy a brew kettle now and I see more beer has the 9 gallon economy kettle with 2 ports on sale. Is a 9 gallon kettle large enough to do 5 gallon batches? I just hate to buy it if it's not going to be the right kettle. Thanks!
 
I've done a few dozen batches in an 8 gallon pot. You should have no problems with it.
 
IMHO, A 9 gallon kettle is plenty. The one I currently use is 9 gallons and I've never had any issues with it.

Figure this way, say your shooting for say 5.5 gallons in the fermenter. So theoretically your system boils a gallon off in an hour (this varies) and you need to boil for 90 minutes. You would start with 7 gallons in the kettle. This still would leave you with 2 gallons of head space. This IMO is a worse case scenario and you still have plenty of room.

hope this helps
 
I was just thinking boil overs. The last extract I did was 1.5 gallons of liquid in a 6 gallon turkey pot and I had to keep removing it from the heat to prevent it from boiling over.
 
I do full boils in a 7 1/2 gallon turkey frier all the time. If you are boiling over 1.5 in a 6 gal you might need less heat to maintain a boil
 
For boil overs keep a spray bottle with water around and spray on the boil when it starts to boil over.

You can also buy fermcap and with a pipette just put a drop or two in the wort just before it reaches boil.

Hope this helps
 
I brewed 2 batched last weekend in a 35 QT (8.75 gallon) saf-T cooker and aside from having to hit that bloody button it worked a dream. Brought 5.5 gallons to a raging boil in about 40 mins, which is a good amount of time for a period of steeping. Burns very little propane and cost $30!
 
+1 for Fermcap. Just did an 8.5g boil in a 9g kettle with no issues.
 
I use a 10 gallon kettle, my boil volume is usually around 7-7.5 gallons. I try to end up with around 5.5-6 in my primary, which then allows for fermentation loss, trub loss, transfer loss, and keeps me at or above 5 gallon bottling volume.

IME, a very high gravity beer that starts out with a pre-boil volume around 7 gallons or 7.5 will sometimes result in some boilover in my 10 gallon kettle, little heat monitoring and trial and error to reduce these, but I don't think you would have a problem with a 9 gallon. I just say all this to say If buying a new kettle, If I were doing it again, I would go with a 15, which would allow me to not worry about boilover at all, virtually, and then I would have it should I decide to do a 10 gal batch.

Edit: I missed the part where you had said you had bought the kettle, dumb me. Have fun!
 
I have targeted a 15 gallon kettle, but I plan to BIAB AG and want the vessel to mash in as well as boil. I presently have a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer and do part boil. Only had one boil over, but usually top off about 1 gallon, so I'm most likely boiling down from 4.5 to 4 gallons.
 
The 9 gallon SS economy kettles from morebeer are plenty big for 5 gallon batches. I have 2 of them (got them from another vendor before MB sold them and I paid more :( ). One thing to note is they are not actually a full 9 gallons. More like 8.75. Still plenty big enough though.
 
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