AG Kettle question

I've read quite a few posts trying to decide on which kettle to buy and I'm somewhere between Blichman and the Morebeer megapot. The only reason I was hesitant on getting the megapot was the high boil off rate which everyone seems to infer is such a bad thing.

This weekend I brewed a 1.090 Hopalam clone doing a batch sparge and read many threads suggesting the best way to do a high gravity with batch sparge is to boil off more wort. I ended up doing about a 2 hours boil since my current kettle only boils off about .75/hr. So if that's the case, wouldn't I be better off with a kettle that does a higher boil off? Seems like it's always better to get as much wort as possible and boil it down to what you need.

I'm guessing the response is going to be if I have a higher boil off then the Kettle will have to be larger. I plan on getting a 15 gallon and don't anticipate doing many 10 gallon batches, but who knows.

Thanks for your input!

I would agree with your logic if you only want to do high gravity beers from all grain, but most of us do a mixture of brews so a compromise has to be made. I like the 1gph from my keggles it allows me to do a lot of different kinds of brews!

Thanks for the response! If you did have a higher boiloff, how would that make you unable to make a lower gravity? I really appreciate the information

jstewartgt said:

Thanks for the response! If you did have a higher boiloff, how would that make you unable to make a lower gravity? I really appreciate the information

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if your boil off is high enough you cant get a 60 min boil (needed for most bittering hops) and still have a low gravity. You wouldnt want to sparge extra (below 1.010) because you will start to extract husk off flavors. You could probably get it done with top up water, but then your hop utilization isnt as good.

Ahh, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you

I've got a 20 gallon Blichmann and am happy with it. I can get a boil-off of 1gl/hr to 2gal/hr depending on how high I crank up the propane heat. I typically get 1.3-1.5 gal/hr and I've never had a problem with scorching the wort.