What do you put your ekettles on?

So, I had a 8 gallon kettle running a single 1500watt element + stove top assist. This method worked well, but I was growing tired of the dance to stop boilovers when I had 7 gallons in there.

So I upgraded! I got a brewers hardware 15gallon kettle, with 2 extra ferrules for elements and their neat element adapters. With the two elements I no longer need the stove! I'm super excited, but now I've reached a stumbling block.

Where do I put my hot kettle as its boiling?

For my test run last night I just put it on a few towels on top of the counter, but I also didn't sustain a boil for an hour on those either. I'm leery to continue with that method, as I don't want to damage the countertop.

So does anyone have simple countertop stands for their kettles? How did you build it?

Eventually I'll have a dedicated stand, but for now the kitchen becomes my brewery on brew days, and then everything gets tucked into the closet. Any advice would be much appreciated!

My kettle:

 

A small wood or granite cutting board would work fine or you could just put it on a stove burner.

 

I put my e-keggle on cinder blocks until I get around to building a slightly less ghetto brew stand. I built it to have a drain right at the bottom to get as much beer out as possible.

 

you upgraded to 2 elements. are you still using 1500w each?

 

They're 2000 watt elements now. I wanted the ability to run 10 gallon batches, but it took a while to get 10 gallons boiling last night, so I'm not sure I'll actually get that high.

Should be able to do 8 gallons now though =D

Thanks for the advice guys, I have a ikea wood cutting board that should do the trick!

 

Back when my brewing table was wood, I used cork heat mats - the same kind you use under hot cooking pots. If you can't find one large one, 4 smaller ones are fine.

Kal

 

Corrugated cardboard.

 

I have a wood stand and use the 14 in. variety of these

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003Y3C99U/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

I also went with a wood cutting board. It was fairly cheap and I got it at Walmart.

 

Awesome link, I just purchased one. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

 

Exactly what I have, although I haven't used it yet

 

I was walking through Ikea and noticed this. It fits perfectly under my 44qt Bayou Kettle. Stainless and only 7 bucks.



http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30111087/

 

Did it look sturdy? I'm wondering whether you could put those straight onto a frame so you wouldn't need a table top at all.

2 of them side by side would be plenty wide enough for a keg.

 

I still have my burner stand so I use that. The beer sure heats up fast with the burner and 4500W element both going full-blast. I still save a ton of propane by using only electric for the boil and for maintaining temps, plus my boil is more predictable, plus there are less problems with wind.

 

I wouldn't trust it to hold the weight. I could probably bend it in half just using my hands. It works great if you are setting it on a counter top though.

 

I bought corkboard on amazon.

 

I bought quarter inch cork on Amazon but found it didn't insulate as well as I thought it would. The tabletop still got quite hot and the cork ended up gluing itself to my bench, which is an old steel door that I tried to make look like stainless using clear spray enamel. Well it got hot enough to bond the cork and enamel... So now I'm using 18" cement landscaping rounds which is apparently what people put under big green eggs. Their problem is they trap water if anything spills when you're taking camlocks off so it's just more cleaning. I haven't found the perfect under-pot insulator yet.