Anybody ever considered a maple syrup evaporator as a "kettle"?

[DaveNH]

Just wondering.

I was at a state fair recently and the sugar house had a small evaporator that looked like it might be a nice, self contained option. Gas fired, large capacity, and spigot(s) built in.

I would think that the boil off rate would be high due to the surface area, which might affect hop utilization.

 

[Ben58]

A friend of mine did this in the late 80's. He did all grain and unfortunately yeast strains weren't very good then. We called it Life Beer, as in life, you can't control everything.

 

[day_trippr]

Yeah, the boil-off thing could easily be a huge problem...

 

[youngson616]

Im looking into using one as an open fermenter. Looking at the 36 x 24 x 6 with the ball valve

 

[NoCornOrRice]

They work great as open fermenter, boil kettles, not so much due to excessive boil off.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Use it as a coolship!