Brewing on the grill top

What are the disadvantages and advantages (if any) to just using my regular propane BBQ grill? Will it work?

I'm guessing not enough heat...or painfully slow at best.

ive tried...besides being slow i smell like meat after.....it is quite painfully slow. Go to walmart and pick up a turkey frier kit for 40 bucks. comes with burner and a 7.5 gal pot

+1 on the not enough heat. Probably won't be able to get a rolling boil going. Turkey fryers are on sale now at the big box stores for like $30.

It depends on the BTUs of your grill. I dont have any numbers for you on what you would need to boil X gallons of water but it has been done. It would allow you to brew outside if your trying to get out of the kitchen. Most grills should be able to handle boiling a partial boil, but a full boil is going to be harder on the grill. Simple way to find out if its going to work is take the volume of water you need for the batch and see if the grill can boil it.
The disadvantage of a grill compared to a typical burner is the way the burner is spaced out. Your grill is designed to evenly distribute its heat across the entire cooking surface. The typical "brewing" burner constraints its heat to the bottom of the kettle. This means that less BTUs are needed to boil the wort.

So the short answer is:
Advantages:
you could move outside
Disadvantages
slower than a burner of equal BTUs or may not boil at all

Also, with the burner on the side of the grill, it may not be able to stand the weight of the kettle full of wort without tipping over.

I couldn't even boil water for corn on the side burner of my grill. As was mentioned earlier, turkey fryers are sale items this time of year. Additionally, as it is going to heat the wort more efficiently than a grill, you will use less propane.

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

I couldn't even boil water for corn on the side burner of my grill. As was mentioned earlier, turkey fryers are sale items this time of year. Additionally, as it is going to heat the wort more efficiently than a grill, you will use less propane.

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Same for me. I thought that with this fancy new grill there would be no more running inside to cook on the stove top while grilling but the side burner was unable to boil a medium size pot of water for corn on the cob.

Trying to use the cooking surface of the grill would be very difficult. Pull all the heat diffusers out so that the burner flame is unempeded on it's way up to your pot. It might work but as others have said, for just more than the cost of a propane exchange, you can get a turkey fryer.

Linc

???? ????

Why are ya'll cooking corn in a pot if you already have the grill going. Everyone knows that roasted corn is the best vegetable on the face of the planet.

FWIW, I looked at home depot, lowe's, target, walmart, sam's, some grill store, and circuit city. No one had a turkey fryer for under $80. Mine came from craigslist.

phissionkorps said:

FWIW, I looked at home depot, lowe's, target, walmart, sam's, some grill store, and circuit city. No one had a turkey fryer for under $80. Mine came from craigslist.

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Dude, Wal-Mart at I-30 & Eastchase had them for $35, got mine there last year.



EDIT: Looking on-line, they no longer seem to carry the basic fryer kit that I got. They only have the spill proof models. But I could swear I saw them there the other day. Maybe too many people burned **** down.

EDIT: EDIT: Stupid ****ing piece of **** censorship stars, if I want to type ****, it should let me type ****. S H I T, there, I did it. Come get me now VBulletin police.

I tried using my stove... took a really long time. I tried using the side burner on my grill... it took equally as long. Then I bought a turkey fryer and I get full boils in less than 20 minutes.

We're still a month out for the really cheap turkey fryer kits. The weekend after Thanksgiving Walmart will have their leftover stock on sale for $20 or so. I bought two last year at that price as gifts after everyone raved about the fried turkey we had for Thanksgiving.

Walmart around here had the kits for $40 a couple months ago. though i would bet they go up right before thanksgiving then drop right after. However if you have a pot just buy a bayou classic burner on amazon for $40 or keep an eye on craigslist (got a bayou kit plus propane tank for $25).

My local Home Depot has the bayou classic "outdoor stove" as a stock item for $45.

First time i brewed i used the stove in the kitchen, it worked well but i had a boil over now next to the burner on the white enamel is a bunch of small pin-head size spots that wouldn't come off. Second time i used my side burner on my grill because of the mishap last time. The side burner was slow but once the water got boiling it worked fine plus im a extract brewer w/ special grains for now the grill works for warming the syrup at the same time. Now I have some 3-burner propane camp stove that really does the trick. It was free so it doesn't get much better then that.
If i didn't come across the free burner I have now I would probably still use the grill. Yeah its slow rdwhahb!

BarleyWater said:

Also, with the burner on the side of the grill, it may not be able to stand the weight of the kettle full of wort without tipping over.

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True Dat.

1 gallon of water equals 8.33 lbs.
So a 5 gallon batch you're looking at boiling closer to 6 gallons of water.
You're looking at damn near 50 pounds of water on your grill.


but I was thinking about this, but more along the lines of a DIY project. if you gutted the grill for the burner and made a stand for it? Probably be cheaper to just buy a turkey fryer.

Just a quick alarm...
I have used the side burner of my grill, and my turkey fryer to booil the wort, there is an added element of 'danger' here... Ther are a lot of airborne contaminents floating around outside that could make their way into your wort. Just watch out, take care, cool fast and you should be ok.
Just my $.02...flame away.
-E