Brew Kettle size?

What size kettle do I need to make a 5 gallon batch from an extract kit?
After the boil will I need to add water to the fermenter, how much?
Thanks for the help!

Are you brewing outside or inside? My limited 2 cents is to get at an 8 or 10 gallon kettle and a propane burner setup so you can do full boils. If you are going stove top then you may be limited to just a 5 gallon, which would be the bare minimum, depending on your stove size.

Get yourself a 9+ gallon pot. This way you don't have to upgrade anytime soon and not worry about boil overs. If you have an outdoor burner go this.route. yes you will need to add water at the end of.the boil usually with an extract kit.

when i did my batch, i used the same bucket that i use for my canning pickles. it was a good size, just the standard ball canning set. i would recommend a little bit bigger though because i had to keep an eye on mine to watch carefully for boil over.

on a different note, i did have to add water after my wort was cooked up. this benefited me 2 separate ways. the first was that it didn't need as much room on the stove because the cooked wort was near 3 gallons. also, once i transferred mine into the fermenter, i added about 2 gallons of cold water to make it 5 gallons total. this also helped cool my wort down faster before i added my yeast.

hope this helps, but my experience is from one batch only so far

For extract and partial mashes, you can get away with a 5 gallon. Once your go all grain (and you will), you will need the 8+ gallon pot. I am now limited to 3 gallon all grain batches because I went cheap and got the 5 gallon pot.

talljetsfan said:

What size kettle do I need to make a 5 gallon batch from an extract kit?
After the boil will I need to add water to the fermenter, how much?
Thanks for the help!

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Depends on how large of a boil you want to do. I'd also take your future plans into consideration. If you want to go all grain someday then I'd error on the side of larger. I'm assuming your just starting out so I will tell you that you need at least a 5 gallon kettle. You can't do full boils in one of those though so I'd go with something no smaller than 9 gallons if you want to go with full boils on a burner. your typical boil size should be somewhere between 6 and 7 gallons for full boils and trust us when we say you want that extra space so you don't have to worry about boil overs.