Stovetop

So i live im a small apt int the city. Brewing outside isnt really an option. My stovetop has two 9000 btu and two 6000 btu gas burners. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get the most out of this weak setup? Insulation ideas for gas ranges? Is doing the boil and then transferring the primary via car frowned upon? Thanks

Fellow stove-top brewer here. To get my boil going, I have the kettle on the burner cranked up on high once I have started lautering. My mash tun sits above the kettle on a little step up stand with some books and a towel on top. Then I put some aluminum foil covering to cover about 80% of the kettle since I don't have a lid. Crank up the burner to max and hope it doesn't take too long. I'm planning on getting a handheld heating element for liquids to speed this up, which I saw on amazon.com.

I put my 9 gal Bayou kettle over two 9,000btu gas burners and get a nice rolling boil in about an hour (lid on). I also put my first runnings on the stove at full blast while batch sparging. I'm able to get my first runnings up to 190-200F by the time I'm ready to drain the sparge water (about 25min).

I thought about insulating the kettle to speed things up and save some gas but a house fire would really ruin the brew day. I don't see any reason why transferring the primary would be a problem but I wouldn't feel like brewing if I had haul my equipment to someone else's house every time.

How many btus are your burners? So your just heating the boil pot up while mashing?

phishkid02 said:

How many btus are your burners? So your just heating the boil pot up while mashing?

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I have no clue how strong they are..but this apt. complex is pretty old so they are probably weak. As soon as the first runnings start draining into the brew kettle after vorlaufing, I crank up the heat. Then it takes less time to achieve the boil after sparging.

You could use two pots. I use two 12qt pots on an electric stove. I can boil two gallons in 23 minutes on the big burner and 28 on the little one. When I was using a 16qt pot with almost four gallons it was all I could do to boil it, in excess of an hour.

I tested my electric stove the other day and it took 22 minutes to get 1.5gal boiling, not optimal but it isn't bad considering it was going from tap cold to boil in that timeframe.

I would say smaller batches or thinner pots to boil in.

Wynne-R said:

You could use two pots. I use two 12qt pots on an electric stove. I can boil two gallons in 23 minutes on the big burner and 28 on the little one. When I was using a 16qt pot with almost four gallons it was all I could do to boil it, in excess of an hour.

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Ah true, you could do this. It works pretty well. I used to do this back before I bought a brew kettle large enough for the whole batch, and I just had two 5 gallon pots for doing BIAB.

You could try the BIAB partial mash . Like in this thread.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

To get your boil going just keep it split between the two pots. Your stove should be able to boil a couple of gallons per burner.