Brew kettle question

[HB2112]

My wife got me a really nice Gas One 8 gallon brew kettle for Christmas. It's the one with the false bottom and the bazooka screen tube on the ball valve. It also has a thermometer on the front of it. Is the thermometer dial submersible? I don't have a wort chiller yet and usually put the brewing pot in an icebath in the sink to cool it down. I don't want to put the whole thing in an ice bath and ruin the thermometer. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

[bstacy1974]

It's not going to be submersible. You'll end up with water inside the dial. Depending on the quality, it will probably rust as well. Immersion chillers are $50 on Amazon. Just get one. A cheap immersion chiller is way better and more efficient than putting your pot in cold water.

 

[Stormcrow]

I've got the ten gallon version of that setup and really like it. Be ready to rake that bazooka screen with a sanitized mash paddle or something though if you don't use a hop spider or bags. Mine likes to clog, but i can keep it flowing if i rake with the paddle.

 

[HB2112]

Thank you both. I've gone this far so might as well get a wort chiller. I wondered if that tube would get plugged or not. The funny part is my wife originally ordered the 16 gallon by mistake and when I saw it I thought about trying to make it work, but it's enormous.

 

[bstacy1974]

Kettle screens need a large surface area to work properly. The Hop Stopper is an example. The bazooka screens arent really designed to strain hop material, in my opinion. Most brewer's just dump everything in the fermenter anyway. Although some of my recent IPA recipes could have really used some filtration. I left a lot of wort behind.
I was looking at the 10 gal model of that kettle but was unsure if weldless triclamp fittings would fit under that lower groove. Ended up getting the cheap Bayou Classics 10 gal kettle instead.

 

[RM-MN]

Thank you both. I've gone this far so might as well get a wort chiller. I wondered if that tube would get plugged or not. The funny part is my wife originally ordered the 16 gallon by mistake and when I saw it I thought about trying to make it work, but it's enormous.

it isn't just the thermometer that you want to keep out of the water when chilling. How would you sanitize the inside of the ball valve if you had immersed it?

 

[ATLBeer]

Spray it with star san

 

[eric19312]

Congrats on picking out a great wife!

I bet if you are still with us in the hobby in a year you will be wishing you kept that 15 gallon "mistake" kettle.

I think the false bottom and bazooka on that kettle are there for BIAB / mash tun applications more so than boil kettle. I've heard false bottoms in boil kettles do work pretty well when you use whole cone hops in the kettle. I think even a mixture of whole cone and pellets will work but not pellets alone.

 

[HB2112]

Thanks Eric she's a keeper for sure. Believe me I kept looking at that 16 gallon kettle thinking I'm sure I'd grow into it. However, that sucker is huge and wouldn't fit on the stove top in the kitchen. Oh and I did order the wort chiller.

 

[Jim R]

In retrospect, I wish I would have just bought a plain brew kettle without the valve and thermometer which just make it a little harder to clean well. The thermometer only measures the temperature right where the probe is. You need to stir the pot well first to get a true reading for the whole kettle. It also isn't as accurate as a good digital hand thermometer. The valve is also only useful for draining the kettle if you are happy draining it from the bottom where most of the debris / turb is. I don't use it anymore and instead use an auto siphon so I can drain the clearer wort from the top of the kettle. I should have just bought a plain kettle, a stainless steel auto siphon and a good digital hand thermometer from the beginning.

 

[KeizerBrewr]

If you have a Home Depot or Lowes nearby, build yourself an immersion chiller for nearly half the cost of any commercially available IC. Best part is, it will get you going and allow you to get the hang of the rest of the process. You can always upgrade later.

 

[HB2112]

Jim thanks and I can see your point. And Keizer I just ordered one on Amazon. I built a cooling condenser once for recycling methanol when I was brewing biodiesel. No doubt I could've done it but it's prime time steelhead season right now and I need to make time for fishing any way I can. I do have a question about using a wort chiller. Are you guys concerned at all about air born critters while chilling the wort since the lid is off? Once again thank you all for your insight and advice.

 

[KeizerBrewr]

I try and keep the lid on my kettle while it's chilling down to help prevent any potential invaders

 

[Jim R]

It takes me about 20-25 minutes to cool from 212 degrees to 65 degrees so it is only sitting in the boil kettle at a temperature where contaminants would be a threat (like under 170 degrees or so) for a short time. My immersion chiller protocol is to start cooling with my garden or faucet hose for 10 minutes. Then I have a cooler filled with ice water that I have been chilling down during my 60 min boil time with some ice cubes and a milk carton block of ice that I made before brew day. At 10 min, I switch the faucet hoses to an inexpensive utility pump (like a small outdoor pond pump) in the cooler ice bath and recirculate the ice water through the immersion chiller and back into the cooler. I leave the kettle lid on as best as I am able with the hoses. Within 10-15 min I will be down to 65 degrees and I transfer to my fermenter. If I am outside in my garage. I close the garage door to decrease air flow as much as possible for the short cooling time. I have never had an infected batch.

 

[ChiknNutz]

It takes me about 20-25 minutes to cool from 212 degrees to 65 degrees so it is only sitting in the boil kettle at a temperature where contaminants would be a threat (like under 170 degrees or so) for a short time. My immersion chiller protocol is to start cooling with my garden or faucet hose for 10 minutes. Then I have a cooler filled with ice water that I have been chilling down during my 60 min boil time with some ice cubes and a milk carton block of ice that I made before brew day. At 10 min, I switch the faucet hoses to an inexpensive utility pump (like a small outdoor pond pump) in the cooler ice bath and recirculate the ice water through the immersion chiller and back into the cooler. I leave the kettle lid on as best as I am able with the hoses. Within 10-15 min I will be down to 65 degrees and I transfer to my fermenter. If I am outside in my garage. I close the garage door to decrease air flow as much as possible for the short cooling time. I have never had an infected batch.

I do the same except during cooler weather I find the ground water is adequate to cool to pitching temps and so can forego the second step.

 

[HB2112]

Thanks Jim. Is the pond pump a submersible one?

 

[HB2112]

Thanks Chikn. Keizer I took a closer look at your pic there. We used to use something similar for the cooler while canoeing. Sooner or later the tipping over starts and if you don't have the canoe in the cooler it's all good.

 

[HB2112]

Oops I meant cooler in the canoe

 

[z-bob]

I have started using mine without the bazooka screen. I put a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in the fermenter (usually a 6 gallon bucket) and drain the wort thru that. It filters out all the hops and most of the hot and cold break proteins, and a lot of the flour that made it all the way to that point. The screen is a nice idea but it doesn't have enough surface area and clogs up.

Don't submerge that thermometer. You could sit the bucket in a shallow pan of ice and water, and use a rag or sponge to wipe the sides of the kettle with cold water. I use a really awful immersion chiller that I made and wipe down the sides of the kettle with a wet rag. I can quickly get the temperature from boiling down to about 85 or 90 degrees, and it's really slow after that no matter how cold my tapwater is. So I put sanitized ice bottles in the fermenter to chill it the rest of the way. That works much better than you'd think.

 

[ChiknNutz]

Thank you both. I've gone this far so might as well get a wort chiller. I wondered if that tube would get plugged or not. The funny part is my wife originally ordered the 16 gallon by mistake and when I saw it I thought about trying to make it work, but it's enormous.

You may wish you'd kept the bigger one sooner than later. I thought my 10G kettle would be fine for the foreseeable future, have had it for several years but want to move on to some bigger beers (higher ABV not bigger volumes). Just picked up a 15G kettle last weekend so I can make bigger beers via BIAB. I've maxed out what I can do with my current one.

 

[HB2112]

OK tried out the new kettle last night. And yes I'm not crazy about the bazooka tube or the false bottom. I do like the thermometer and the ball valve. The thing I disliked most about bazooka tube and false bottom is there's no way to stir the bottom of the kettle. I also experienced my first boil over. Not horrible but still a mess. And the new wort chiller worked great.