New brew pot question

Not sure if this is the right forum or not. If not please move to the correct one.


I just bought a 40qt alluminum brew pot. I was doing some tests with it today on my gas stove. It is big enough that I can put it over 2 burners on the stove. With the lid on it will bring 8 gallons of water to a rolling boil but without the lid 6.5 gallons barely boils. The 6.5 gallons was boiling but just barely, no where close to a rolling boil. I was hoping to finally be able to do full boils and go AG. I will eventually be moving outside but was hoping to continue on the stovetop for now. Maybe a heatstick would be the answer.

My question is how much of a boil do I need? Can I leave the lid on partially?

I had exactly the same dilemma up until a few days ago when I bought a nice outdoor burner... I can't even tell you how nice it is to go from stovetop to propane burner... Its all the difference! the sooner you can, DO IT! anyways regarding your question; I always just left the lid partially on. It's a lot nicer if you don't have to... but it works. As for the heatstick... save your money and put it towards a nice burner. Heres a pretty good deal on one:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009JXYQ4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Free shipping too!

Thats a good price but I need one that uses natural gas. I suppose I could modify it to use NG but would rather not. The only resonably priced NG burners I have found are the ones BobbyM uses, the 23 tip burners, but they are bit to powerfull for only 5 gallon batches.

I bought three of these eight inch 20 jet NG burners from topfoodservice. I think they are a bit overkill even for my converted keg. If I were to do it again, I'd go with these six inch 10 jet NG burners instead.

here is a 10 jet for $30. NG or LPG your choice.
http://prostores1.megawebservers.com/krazykajuncookware_com/Detail.bok?no=270

Do what you have to do, but I wouldn't leave the cover on during the boil, not even partially. For one, the you risk having a boil over, and second, the DMS (dimethyl sulphide) that is produced via a chemical reaction during the boil can't escape if you have the lid on. The steam with the DMS in it will condense on the underside of the lid and drip back into your wort. It can lead to a cooked vegetable off flavor that I have tasted before, and it's not good, yuck!

Here's what John Palmer has to say about DMS:
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
Dimethyl Sulfides (DMS)/ Cooked Vegetable Flavors
Like diacetyl in ales, DMS is common in many light lagers and is considered to be part of the character. DMS is produced in the wort during the boil by the reduction of another compound, S-methyl-methionine (SMM), which is itself produced during malting. When a malt is roasted or toasted, the SMM is reduced beforehand and does not manifest as DMS in the wort, which explains why it is more prevalent in pale lagers. In other styles, DMS is a common off-flavor, and can be caused by poor brewing practices or bacterial infections.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
DMS is continuously produced in the wort while it is hot and is usually removed by vaporization during the boil. If the wort is cooled slowly these compounds will not be removed from the wort and will dissolve back in. Thus it is important to not completely cover the brewpot during the boil or allow condensate to drip back into the pot from the lid. The wort should also be cooled quickly after the boil, either by immersing in an ice bath or using a wort chiller.[/FONT]

Thanks for the advice guys. I guess I am either gonna have to build a heatstick or move outside.

Amiaji said:

Thanks for the advice guys. I guess I am either gonna have to build a heatstick or move outside.

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No to both premises, you can do full volume boils on your stovetop, lots of people do; take a look at flyguy's thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=53683&highlight=stove

Also a wise brewer with much more experience than me once told me when I asked a similar question about "rolling boils" and beer said to me, that it was "hoowie," that water boils at 212 degrees period, whether it is "rolling" or not...it doesn't really matter, even for things like dms blowoff...in fact if you are worried about dms, then boil for 90 minutes as opposed to 60....boil for 30 minutes, then begin all your hop addition with an hour left to the boil.

Ok I insulated the pot, heating up water in it now. I'll see how it goes.

Amiaji said:

Ok I insulated the pot, heating up water in it now. I'll see how it goes.

Click to expand...

What did you end up using for insulation???? I'm still looking for a mondo sized pot, so I'm still looking at how people are doing it.

I wrapped the pot in alluminum flashing and used alluminum tape to hold it together. Then I sprayed some contact cement on the flashing and put a layer of the insulation out of my old stove. Wrapped it all up in the reflectix insulation from Lowe's. The reflectix insulation didnt hold up to the high temps. You would need to find something better that can handle the temps.

Even with the insulation it still wouldnt get a good boil with only 4 gallons of water in the pot. I guess my new gas stove is pretty weak. I'm still undecided about a heat stick or moving outside.