$9.99 20-qt Stock Pot from Family Dollar?

My old brew pot is too small so I've been looking to upgrade.

I bought a 20 Quart Stainless Steel Stock Pot from Family Dollar, for $9.99.

I won't have a chance to brew for a few weeks so I can't test it out right away.

Anybody ever used a cheapo brewpot like this? Any precautions I should take or problems I should watch out for?

Thanks,
chris.

I use something similar to that for heating water, but not to brew in. That pot would be kind of small to do a full boil for a 5 gallon batch.

Only thing I would say is to be careful with the heat. The bottom is probably pretty thin, so if you crank it up too much, you could create a hot spot and scorch the wort.

20 qt. is a good size for an extract or partial mash brewer.

yea? I haven't bought one because I thought it would be too small. I found 28qt for 15 at Walmart.. think I'll pick up two. sweet!

I'm using a 21 qt enameled pot for my extract batches, of which I've done only two so far, but I was happy using this size pot for 3 gallon boils. I would definitely look for a bigger one if you want to boil more than that. Another consideration, the cooktop you're using, gas or electric. If electric, then coil or glasstop.

Many of these cheaper pots, mine included, have an indented bottom, which I think is there to help the thinner metal better keep its shape. The type bottom doesn't really contact an electric element, and even less so a glasstop, heat source, so it's not as efficient as a truly flat bottom pot.

I'm already scheming for a turkey fryer setup after tax time, so I'm sticking with the enamel pot for the time being. That should probably only be for another half dozen batches or less before I try to go AG, and out of the kitchen. The cheap pot has been good for me, but if I intended to stay where I'm making beer now I'd be looking at a more expensive one for sure.

My ¢2,
Matt

I've used a 20qt SS pot for a long time. It was cheap, it is thin, it does scorch the wort. But still, my beer tastes good!
Unless you're brewing a really light beer, it probably won't matter. The taste of the burnt wort is very subtle and actually adds some character to the beer, IMO.
If you can find a piece of scrap metal, you can easily make your own heat diffuser. It just needs to be big enough to keep the pot stable and cover where the flames would touch the pot.

I got one of those from family dollar last year. I have seen them at christmas tree shops too. Yes they are thin. No you cannot boil a full five gallons.

Is it a good buy?

I think so. I have since gotten a larger pot but it got me by for a while. I did not had scorching issues even on my propane burner. It still comes in handy. No worries, it will work fine. You can boil about 4 gallons carefully (concentrated boil) or use your old pot with it to boil the whole batch.

CallMeZoot said:

My old brew pot is too small so I've been looking to upgrade.

I bought a 20 Quart Stainless Steel Stock Pot from Family Dollar, for $9.99.

I won't have a chance to brew for a few weeks so I can't test it out right away.

Anybody ever used a cheapo brewpot like this? Any precautions I should take or problems I should watch out for?

Thanks,
chris.

Click to expand...

For that price, buy two, split your batch between the two pots, you will be able to do a full boil, which is better for hop extraction and maintaining the original color/flavor of the extracts. Also, you will not need to work as hard to heat the smaller amounts of water in the two pots, so less chance of scorching, and BEST OF ALL, you will have lots of space in the top of the pot, so they are safer to move around, and easier to control boil overs.

rabidgerbil said:

For that price, buy two, split your batch between the two pots, you will be able to do a full boil, which is better for hop extraction and maintaining the original color/flavor of the extracts. Also, you will not need to work as hard to heat the smaller amounts of water in the two pots, so less chance of scorching, and BEST OF ALL, you will have lots of space in the top of the pot, so they are safer to move around, and easier to control boil overs.

Click to expand...

Hmmm that's an intriguing thought, I might try it. The only obstacle I foresee:

I only have one burner on my stove that is large enough to cover the entire bottom surface of the 20qt pot. My other large burner is too small. It's a glass-top stove and I'm afraid that the overhanging surface area will damage the non-burner portion of my stovetop. (Besides, I imagine it would be difficult to bring to a boil, and timing ingredient additions with two simultaneous-but-not-at-different-rate boils might be very complicated).

Anybody have experience doing it this way? Tips?

Thanks,
chris.

CallMeZoot said:

Hmmm that's an intriguing thought, I might try it. The only obstacle I foresee:

I only have one burner on my stove that is large enough to cover the entire bottom surface of the 20qt pot. My other large burner is too small. It's a glass-top stove and I'm afraid that the overhanging surface area will damage the non-burner portion of my stovetop. (Besides, I imagine it would be difficult to bring to a boil, and timing ingredient additions with two simultaneous-but-not-at-different-rate boils might be very complicated).

Anybody have experience doing it this way? Tips?

Thanks,
chris.

Click to expand...

Ahh... I just have a crappy old stove, not some fancy glass top, so I don't have that problem

Seriously though, this is how I have done my last couple of batches, and I just had a brother in law tell me on Sunday that the beer I was serving was "the best beer I have ever had". Now I don't claim to be on the level of the vast majority of people around here, as I am still learning, but... that must count for something.

rabidgerbil said:

For that price, buy two, split your batch between the two pots, you will be able to do a full boil, which is better for hop extraction and maintaining the original color/flavor of the extracts. Also, you will not need to work as hard to heat the smaller amounts of water in the two pots, so less chance of scorching, and BEST OF ALL, you will have lots of space in the top of the pot, so they are safer to move around, and easier to control boil overs.

Click to expand...

Sweet that was what I was getting to. I'll just split everything into two pots, for a 5 gal boil thats 3gal each right? Since I'll probably lose one to evaporation...Just a guess..

El_Borracho said:

Sweet that was what I was getting to. I'll just split everything into two pots, for a 5 gal boil thats 3gal each right? Since I'll probably lose one to evaporation...Just a guess..

Click to expand...

I do extract with grains, and here is the method that I use.
1) Put three gallons into one pot, eyeball where the water level is, and bring this up to steeping temp for the grains.
2) Put the other two gallons in the second pot, and bring it up to heat also. Eyeball the level on this one also.
3) Once the steeping is done, add the hops, and about 1/4 of your malt extract to the first pot. You will need to top this pot off with water from the second pot.
4) Keep the first pot, your boiling pot, topped off with hot water from the second pot. Keep the second pot topped off with cold water.
5) During the last 15 minutes of the boil, turn off the heat, add the remaining malt extract to both pots, make sure that it is well disolved to avoid any scorching problems, and then bring both pots up to a boil and boil for the remaining 15 minutes.

I am sure that there are some out there that will give a good argument that this is probably not maximizing hop utilization, and that it would be better to have everything evenly divided between the two pots, and they are probably correct, but here is my reasoning for my method:
1) it is less hassle to keep an eye on one pot full of boiling sugar solution, instead of two.
2) the malt extract has already been cooked as long as I want it to be when it was created, I don't want to darken it any more than necessary. I put the majority in just long enough to make sure that it is sanitized.
3) last but not least, experience tells me that this works just fine, and the beers come out good.