aluminum pot?

Will an aluminum pot be OK, or will it leave a metallic taste in the beer? I bought a 32 quart pot today not thinking about what it was made out of and it turned out to be aluminum.

Yes it will work.

Check out the sticky in the equipment forum.

ok, just read the sticky and it seems like I will be fine. Although the aluminum pot really wasnt that much cheaper. A SS at my LHBS was 79.99 before taxes and the aluminum one was 70 after taxes so I am really only saving 15 bucks or so. Should I just go with stainless steel, it sounds like SS will last longer

Same size pot? Go for the stainless.

arturo7 said:

Same size pot? Go for the stainless.

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the stainless is 2 quarts smaller. Aluminum is 8 gal/32 quart, steel is 7.5/30 quart

Aluminum pots work just fine, as long as you remember to boil some water in them before you use them for beer or food. You need to build up a passive oxide layer before you trust your wort to them.

More details here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/vs-pro-con-analysis-109318/

llazy_llama said:

Aluminum pots work just fine, as long as you remember to boil some water in them before you use them for beer or food. You need to build up a passive oxide layer before you trust your wort to them.

More details here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/vs-pro-con-analysis-109318/

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yeah, I think I will stick with the aluminum pot it is $15 cheaper

I just bought a 32 quart aluminum (tamale steamer) pot from Wally-world for $25. I'm hoping that it won't be so thin as to cause a whole lot of scorching, but we'll see.

There are fixes for the scorching however, so I'm not to worried.

Agreed. I use an aluminum BK, since every piece of equipment I own has to be shipped to my remote location on the moon, AKA South Dakota.

Aluminum works just fine, and is much cheaper than SS (although it looks much less cool. )

hmm. the aluminum pot that I got seems fairly thin, what is the thickness of your "tamale" steamer

My aluminum pot is really thin, came with the burner in the turkey fryer kit I got for $36 at HD, and works fine for my purposes now. I used it for a couple extract batches and have about 12-15 AG batches in it so far and it's been a trooper. A cheap, ugly craptastic trooper.......If you are doing extract, then just make sure to add it while stirring well before you reach boiling.

The bigger problem that you are going to have with that pot, due to it's size, is that you are going to have to sit and watch your wort boil for the first 20 minutes to prevent boilovers.....mine is 32 qt as well and it's just big enough for full boils plus standing there with a sprayer full of clean water to keep the foam in the pot.

chemman14 said:

hmm. the aluminum pot that I got seems fairly thin, what is the thickness of your "tamale" steamer

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$70 should buy a nice 32 qt aluminum pot, or a 40 qt for that matter. Sounds to me like you pretty much paid "retail". 32 qt is on the small side and IMO work fine if they are a deal. For 5 gallon batches a 40 qt. is a nicer size.

check out "instawares"
32 Qt Aluminum Stock Pots, Cookware, kitchen supplies

Tamale steamers are typically thin and inexpensive, but should work well. A good price performer you could ay.

thanks guys, going to brew later today

chemman14 said:

hmm. the aluminum pot that I got seems fairly thin, what is the thickness of your "tamale" steamer

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The paperwork didn't say, and I don't have a mic., but it looks to be about 1/64" or so.

I'm boiling water in it now with the lid on to see how long it'll take. I live in an apartment with electric. I may end up having to put an insulted jacket on it like I've seen in another tread. But for $25, hey, I'm not going to complain too much.

It ended up boiling 7 gallons of water from about 65F in 1hr 20min with the lid on. It was a rolling boil with the lid off. I think I'll be fine without the insulated jacket, but I will need to get some Fermcap. Six and a half gal. is too close to the top in this 8 gal. pot.

NAh, I use a 40qt turkey fryer setup, its great. I even bought a 32qt enamel pot for AG batches. Takes both for deathbrewers AG method on the stove(quicker if you use a fryer.)