15 gal pot on kitchen gas range

Before I plonk down my money on a 60 quart SS pot

http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/update-international/sps-60/p5177.aspx

and drilling a hole in it, I was wondering if anyone can verify that it would bring 10 gal of wort up to boiling on my (propane) kitchen stove.

It will straddle two burners (front and back). This pot has a 3-ply bottom and I'm planning on wrapping the sides with that foil insulating stuff you get from Home Depot. Also, keeping the lid on (watch out for boil over!) until it starts to boil.

The stove at present can bring wort in a 5 gal pot to a rolling boil on one burner no problem.

Cheers!

If you're going to invest in a large pot then it's time to get a propane burner too. The maximum output for an average stove burner is about 12,000 btu. Even if you could get it over two max out put burners that's a total of 24,000 btu. Your average turkey fryer burner is over 150,000. That's what you want. It would eventually come up to a boil but I can tell you from experience that 12 gal of wort (which is what you need to compensate for evaporation, hop absorbtion, and transfer loss) takes almost 20 min on my big burner. Now cut the power output by a factor of five and you are looking at quite a long day.

Try it out and if you have trouble........get a turkey fryer.

Cheers

i have a gas range and i can barely get 5 gallons to boil. and it takes an hour to get there.

Not likely at all. Most stoves aren't made to have a 90-95lb pot on them.


_

Would it even fit under your hood?

Octavius said:

The stove at present can bring wort in a 5 gal pot to a rolling boil on one burner no problem.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Normally I'd say you have no chance of getting this to work. But based on your statement above, maybe you have some super efficient propane stove. My NG stove has some pretty super duty burners, but a boil over would cause me so much pain that I'd not dare brew on it.

Other poster mentions 12,000 btu's average, I'd dispute that and tell you only the high end pro style propane ranges will give you that as a higher end output.

I also wouldn't use Reflectix insulation on a flame such as a stove or Turkey burner without some fireproof shield over it. It will burn and melt sometimes.

Why not just get a turkey fryer like mentioned above? The double jet burner's from Bayou Classic are by far the best. Heats up twice as fast as other burners.

Are you married? Do you want to stay that way? Seriously, the right answer depends on those 2 questions. And that's not saying anything about if you like the top of your stove at all.

The issues are:

1. heat discoloration of the stove top from a pot that overhangs the burners too far.

2. insanely difficult to remove burnt on boilover which at that size pot could be up to half a gallon.

3. more weight than the structure of the stove is designed to hold up.

Unless you have a commercial range, like a Viking or something like that, any one of these is potential show stopper.

samc said:

Other poster mentions 12,000 btu's average, I'd dispute that and tell you only the high end pro style propane ranges will give you that as a higher end output.

Click to expand...

Mine is just a regular GE range. There's two 12,000, one that's about 9,500 and another that is around 7,500. The main burner is 16,000 in the oven. That's pretty much standard. (I'm the other poster. My commercial burners are about 25,000 a piece and I still wouldn't use them.)

I have gone from extract on a NG stove to now brewing on a propane burner on our small deck with a burner and a 15 gallon pot. This pot is bigger than I had assumed and would never think of trying to put it on our white appliances even if I didn't have the propane burner. BTW we have some discoloration from the pot hanging over in the past. Wife, not happy.

Wow!

Thanks for all the replies!

Never thought about the stove not handling the weight. As you know, after a couple of 10 gal brews, I'd be thinking about 15 gal (apparently that Penrose kettle could accomodate 15 gal). Could you imagine the riot if the stove collapsed under the weight.

Just for clarification, the stove is nothing special and it can boil 5 gal but it takes forever. Putting the lid on until it boils helps, but every First Wort Hoppings I've tried has boiled over before I could catch it. 'Course the show has to go on so at the end of the brewing session there is like asphalt bonded to the stove top and words of disappointment from the wife.

Cheers!

i had discoloration on an electric stove in my last apartment (and didnt get charged, phewwww....). We now have a house with a flat glass top stove that is mostly black. If i used it just for mash tun pre heat water and not the full boil, would you expect any problems?

For the mash water, I've been using an electric bucket heater:

http://www.alliedprecision.com/bucketheater.html

Takes a while to come to temperature, so I turn it on first thing. When it reaches about 180F, I unplug it, take it out the water and then stir in brewing salts. Then pour into Rubbermaid mash tun and stir until it comes to strike temperature.

Cheers