Brew Kettle UPGRADED! 20g

[patrck17]

EDIT: Kettle arrived today so I added a few pictures. Threw in some of my other fittings for the heck of it. Its sad how little space 500 dollars worth of stainless takes up. I'll be building a (mostly) stainless herms system in the next few weeks with the components I've been saving up.

Anyways the kettle itself seems to be of good quality considering the price, you can see the made in china stamp on the bottom of it. Even so it is sturdy and heavy as sh*t. I think it will do what I need it for. Once my bargainfittings order gets in I will start with the drilling and assembly. Sorry for the pic quality, taken with the iphone's crappy camera.












Just ordered a stainless steel pot from instawares.com. Brand is Update International. Apparantly its called SuperSteel® Stock Pot. Based on the description and the research I did at various sites and with searches on this forum it seems to be the same as the MegaPot line, or the Heavy Duty Kettles from Morebeer. Got the 5mm 3-ply bottom with the 1.2mm sides. Came out to $163 shipped without a lid, which is okay for me I don't really need the lid anyway. EDIT: Turns out it did include a lid.

Wanting to go up to 10g batches and didn't want to worry about boilover so I am retiring the keggle to become my HLT for my new herms setup (once I collect all the expensive parts). Anyways already purchased now so if this thing is a POS please don't tell me! lol

Link:
http://www.instawares.com/stainless-steel-stock-pot-sps-80.upi-sps80.0.7.htm

Patrick

 

[DarkNoonBrewer]

Im a huge fan of having 20gal capacity to boil 10 gal batches. For instance, what if you wanted to increase your grain bill and boil down to 10gal for a pseudo imperial? Are you going to add a valve?

 

[patrck17]

Yep. I'll take a pic when it is all done. I was really close to pulling the trigger on a 15gallon when I stopped to think about the trouble I used to have boiling 5g batches in a 7gal brewpot. I don't want to have to worry about that. One thing I do not prefer about this kettle vs a keggle or a blichman or even the bayou classic pot is that it is wider in diameter and shorter in height. It seems to me to have more room to control boilover you'd want to have a taller and narrower pot. I am just hoping theres enough room to handle it in this pot.

 

[weirdboy]

Also don't forget your boil-off rate will be higher. At least, it is with mine vs. my Bayou Classic. I personally don't have a huge problem with boilovers (I've done 7 gallon boils in my 7.25 gallon pot) but I use fermcap when it gets sketchy.

 

[patrck17]

Yes and there is the boil-off rate, damn it. Lol.

 

[rcrabb22]

Yes and there is the boil-off rate, damn it. Lol.

It will just be a matter of getting familiar with it. I would boil some water for an hour to measure b/4 your first real batch

 

[NoNothing]

It will just be a matter of getting familiar with it. I would boil some water for an hour to measure b/4 your first real batch

+1

I lose a bit over a gallon on my short fat 15 gallon stock pot. I was pretty shocked when I had a 4 gallon batch the first time I brewed with it.

Knowing its there is all it takes though, then you'll be golden.

Congrats on the sweet pot, and nice deal on it too!

 

[patrck17]

Bump for pics.

 

[Duckfoot]

Nevermind the pot, where did you pick up the Tri-Clamp stuff?

=)

 

[patrck17]

Nevermind the pot, where did you pick up the Tri-Clamp stuff?

=)

Haha, I ordered it through Swagman, I was please with the turnaround and quality, I was able to customize the fittings for my need. Some barbs, some male some female connectors.

 

[Duckfoot]

I have heard good things about Swagman...

Thanks for the update...