55 gallon batch

[steven85]

Hey all, I have a quick question hopefully someone can answer for me. A few of my friends and I decided to just make one large batch together rather than a bunch of small 5 gallon batches. I found 55 gallon drums online for pretty cheap; much cheaper than boil kettles. I've seen videos of people using these drums as a boil pot, but there are several different kinds. What kind of drum can be used? And has anyone else done this that can tell me what kind they are using? Thanks!

 

[Weizenwerks]

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/boilermaker-55-gallon-brew-kettle.html

 

[ChrisS68]

You're going to need stainless steel. Open head would be handy - a closed head drum would need the top cut off.

 

[ImperialLover]

I was going to use drums as well; however, I found 45 gal stainless pots for $198 ea shipped. Granted, they are chinese and had some dents/dings (small ones), but I got three pots for less than that one Blichman.. If you're interested I'll find the site I got mine from

 

[sjlammer]

I would be interested in that link

 

[MaltedLiver]

Sam's club online sells 50 gallon aluminum stock pots.

 

[ImperialLover]

I would be interested in that link

No problem. I'll find it.

 

[ImperialLover]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320647598626

That's one of the ones that i bought. He has a 100qt (25 gal) pot for the same damn price. You should contact him and see if he can find you one for whatever size you're after.

 

[Catt22]

Three of my friends and myself recently brewed a 24 gallon batch in an SS 55 gallon drum. Pre-boil volume was 32 gallons. The drum worked perfectly for this large batch. We fired it with a Banjo burner which also worked very well with the drum.

 

[stevehaun]

My boil kettle is a 55 gallon SS drum. You could probably make a 40 gallon batch with it but it would be pushing it volume-wise. Gotta have a little room for the hot break.

 

[tomije87]

Three of my friends and myself recently brewed a 24 gallon batch in an SS 55 gallon drum. Pre-boil volume was 32 gallons. The drum worked perfectly for this large batch. We fired it with a Banjo burner which also worked very well with the drum.

This is more out of curiosity, but what kind of time did it take to heat to boil and cool to pitching temps?

 

[Catt22]

This is more out of curiosity, but what kind of time did it take to heat to boil and cool to pitching temps?

We began heating the runoff soon after beginning the sparge. The wort began to boil before we were finished with the sparge, so we reached a boil very quickly once we collected the desired pre-boil wort.

We were brewing in early January so the tap water was very cold. We used a Chillus Maximus CFC and a single pass into the fermenters. The cooling did not take long at all. I did not time the cooling process, but I would estimate that it was about 45 minutes total.