Academy turkey fryer

Anyone use this as a brew kettle?

http://www.academy.com/webapp/wcs/s...27721_-1?N=77985508+10001&Ntt=tf+cook&Ntk=All.

If so, is it too tall?? Walls too thin?? Does it heat evenly? Anything I'm missing?

My buddy has the same one for turkeys and crayfish. I inspected it when he bought it and it would work well as a brewing vessel. I would not hesitate to get it at that price.

Is that thing magnetic? Would it work with an induction burner?

I am sure it will work, but as the owner of a 36 qt turkey fryer let me warn you that you will quickly wish it was larger. I would recommend at least 40qt.

I just bought a 13 gallon kettle from spikes.. he has a special on it.

So is the consensus that 30 qt kettles are not quite big enough for a full 5-5.5g boil?

you boil about 6.5 gallons first to end up at 5.5gal...
30 qts = 7.5 gallons = just a small amount of headroom.

with that being said, i do have the same size pot and it gets used as my main kettle, works fine, but the beginning part of the boil is a little worrysome at times.

I find i boil off closer to 1.5 gallons.

30 will work, but gives very little leeway.

Ok, thanks all. I just figured I'd see what everyone else thinks about it. They're pretty cheap but I think I'll hold out for maybe an 8 or 10 gallon kettle.

I do partials in that same kettle and it works fine. I've only ever got wort up to the 3/4 full line, and have only had one boil-over after adding my LME and then taking my eyes off the kettle for a few seconds. 'Twas my bad.

My lab thermometer sits nicely in the hole on the lid while the kettle is taking an ice bath, which makes for easy reading of the wort temp.

boomer135 said:

So is the consensus that 30 qt kettles are not quite big enough for a full 5-5.5g boil?

Click to expand...

I use the aluminum version of this exact pot. I drain my wort into the pot and it typically fills just past the rivets. Usually end up with 5 to 5.5 gallons of wort going into the fermentor.

Works great, but I'm looking to upgrade to a 15 gallon stainless pot for bigger batches in the next month or so.

I sort of want something that I won't have to worry about boil overs, but also I'm on a tight budget... I think in the long run, I won't be happy with this as it is just a little small... I also heard that you should try to buy one that is approximately the same height as it is in diameter, although i'm not sure what the benefit to that would be... Plus this particular one comes with all the other turkey flying junk that'd just get tossed in the garbage.

When I was at academy, they did have some bigger aluminum ones, but I think I want stainless steel....