Buy a deep fryer!

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EamusCatuli

EamusCatuli

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For those beginners out there *like me* wanting to go to the next step in brewing your beer, buy a deep fryer (turkey fryer/ burner, etc)! I bought a King Kooker at a Farm & Fleet for $40 bucks and its the best money I have spent yet on equipment. I can cook outside, I'm 100000% more efficient, quicker cook times, and I can deep fry just about anything when I have peanut oil, haha! Just as an FYI, they are great and I highly recommend buying one if your still stuck on the stovetop. :mug: .........mmm fried pizza
 
Agreed! I aquired a free turkey fryer from my in-laws. I brewed me third batch as a full boil extract. Yesterday I moved the contents to secondary and took a sample. The results aftehr 1 week were incredibly better than my other two batches. There was no exceptional "twang" or sourness. It was great beer minus the bubbles.

In addition to better tasting extract recipes (at least it seems it will turn out that way) working outside on the deck was way easier than in the kitchen. Just remember you will need an immersion chiller. I built one out if 20' 3/8 in. copper and supplementd with an ice bath. This cooled my wort in 15 minutes. Yeah!

Turkey friers rule.
 
I bought a 40qt fryer setup off Amazon but haven't fired it up yet.

I'm tired of it taking 2 hrs or whatever to get a boil on the stovetop.
 
I recently acquired a fryer setup and some kegs. Can't wait to start doing some full boils:ban:
 
EamusCatuli said:
For those beginners out there *like me* wanting to go to the next step in brewing your beer, buy a deep fryer (turkey fryer/ burner, etc)! I bought a King Kooker at a Farm & Fleet for $40 bucks and its the best money I have spent yet on equipment. I can cook outside, I'm 100000% more efficient, quicker cook times, and I can deep fry just about anything when I have peanut oil, haha! Just as an FYI, they are great and I highly recommend buying one if your still stuck on the stovetop. :mug: .........mmm fried pizza
Click to expand...
now all you need is a mlt and a bigger pot! (for $40 you could be AG) I see AG in your future. And a kegerator, and a mill.... the list goes on.

In fact I just ordered another 55lb sack of grain, we should do a brew together sometime.
 
Yes, if it's under $38, go for it! Those are normally $50. You can use the 7.5 gallon for full boils but you have to watch it like a HAWK.
 
I just got a 30qt set-up from Lowe's for $26. What a deal! I did my first full boil with it...quite a learning experience, but WAY fun to brew outside.

Buy a spray bottle at the same time so that you can keep your boil-overs to a minimum.
 
cerberus9 said:
Excuse the dumb question, but how does a deep fryer help with making beer?
Click to expand...


turkey fryer set up = Source of much heat + decent sized brewpot, all in one easily available and inexpensive package.

I have always been punished with electric ranges that take way too long to bring a few gallons to the boil (as in "2+ hours"). I haven't brewed in teh fryer yet, but I smiled stupidly to myself while putting it together this week. This is gonna be fun....
 
fratemus wrote:
I haven't brewed in teh fryer yet, but I smiled stupidly to myself while putting it together this week. This is gonna be fun....
Click to expand...

+1 on this. Been smiling since leaving the store last night. Had dreams of rocket like flames and good beer. This hobby is again testing my patience. Won't get to brew until Sunday:mad:
 
I need one of these puppies and a wort chiller, then I can do full boils. Well at least on nice days.... right?
 
Heck, I did my first brew with a fryer during a snow storm on my balcony, 6 inches that afternoon! Haha, man that was fun..... since its always boiling the small amount of snow/rain you would get in your pot really would not harm it. Except if your a stickler for the small amounts of trace iron and other minerals in the DIRTY DIRTY air. w/e
 
EvilTOJ said:
Yes, if it's under $38, go for it! Those are normally $50. You can use the 7.5 gallon for full boils but you have to watch it like a HAWK.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's a great price. You won't regret getting one. The pot alone is worth that much easily.

Regarding boil overs and turkey fryer pots -- get yourself some Foam Control drops/Fermcap-s drops. That stuff is magic. I use one of those pots on the kitchen stove and fill it to within an inch and a half of the rim. With the drops, I have never had a boil over (I no longer even worry about it).
 
cerberus9 said:
Excuse the dumb question, but how does a deep fryer help with making beer?
Click to expand...
A turkey fryer is just a large pot and a big heat source. You can get you wort to boiling much faster and the large pot reduces the chance of boil over. And if you do boil over it is outside making much less mess. Also if you have a SWMBO like mine you don't have to hear complaints about that horrible smell in the house. :D

If you do want to use a turkey fryer for doing full boils you almost have to get an immersion chiller. A water/ice bath takes forever to cool 5+ gal or wort. A wort chiller makes short work of it.

Craig
 
Ok, turkey fryer is now on my list to buy. On to HD!! (Home Depot, not High Definition, although I really should think about buying one fo those too one of these days...)
 
ok I ve got a question on the deep fryer setups... Im def. going to get opne of these but most setups I see come with a 30 or 32 qt. pot made of aluminum.. Is that ok or should I be paying the extra money for the Staineless Steel pot??????? If Aluminum is ok Im off to get one this afternoon...... Thanks
 
Did my first brew on the stove top and decided quickly to move to a Turkey Fryer. Cut my brew times in half or better and in the event of a boil over, no worries, I'm outdoors. Being outdoors here in Southern California, brewing beer and watching a ball game on my lap top is like living the high life. I use the 7.5 gallon aluminum pot for my AG full boil and it works fine. As mentioned, you just have to watch for the boil over for a couple of minutes. After the foam settles, it's all good in the hood. I didn't have a wort chiller until this past weekend, so cooling was taking me about an hour. Gonna test my homemade chiller this weekend. It's not real pretty, but I gave it a dry run and it looks like it will function without leaks. GET A TURKEY FRYER!
 
I get an error on the page no matter which of the HD links I click. I see they have a "Bayou Classic Jet Cooker with 20 PSI Regulator Model SP-1 $34.68/EA Each" but there is no pot with it. Can you post an item number or something (tried searching with the item number from the link but came up empty)
 
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, I hate back from the grave posts :p
Oh well, I'll keep looking for the good deal. Just curious, I have looked at the burners on NB's site and others and I see on the HD site they have Bayou Classic burners but they don't look like they have as good of a burner (center flame vs. ring with many holes. Any recommendations on burners like these?
 
I would check the craigslist listings in your area.

but beware! Make sure it has ALL the parts before leaving the seller's house!

I bought a fryer/brewpot/propane tank combo on CL for $60.

The seller said "this is all you need"

Great!

my friend and I started getting everything together on brewday to get started.

What? Where's the regulator and hose?


Not in the box. We spent 2 hours driving around trying to find one.
I was piiiiiissed. :mad: It still came out to be an OK deal considering it came with a full propane tank, but just not as good as I thought it was.
 
Also, every Thanksgiving it seems I always hear about someone on the local news burning their deck and part of their house down frying a turkey in a fryer exactly like these. Now, I know we're brewing beer so there's no chance of a grerase fire breaking out (right? lol)

My question is: if I have a concrete floored porch with the awning about 10' above the floor, would it be unwise to brew ON the porch, under he covered part?

I suppose I could move down to the drive way, but I'm not looking to get any cedar needles in my brew. Not the flavor I'm going for!

Does anyone deem this unsafe/unwise/just plain dumb?
 
NBbeer - I brew on a propane "turkey fryer" just inside my garage with the door open - and that ceiling is about 8.5 feet, so I'll bet you're fine. We're boiling water (mostly) not frying, so there shouldn't be any oily particulate, just steam.
 
I agree.. I just bought one this weekend and brewed my Nut Brown on it... WOW what a difference... The stove was sooooooooooo long and never really got to a good rolling boil... Boy what a difference the Fryer makes.. I got a kit for $99.99 which was a 30 qt. deep fryer kit... Eastman Outdoor company... The burner looks very nice compared to others out there and it claimes to burn hotter and run cleaner with less propaine... Great buy..... DO it up soon if you can..... NEXT item on my list DIY CHILLER.... After that ive got it all... Mash Tun, Fryer, and Chiller... I cant be stoped! hahahaha
 
This is a timely post, I'm picking up a fryer and immersion chiller this weekend. While brewing in the kitchen last weekend, kids and wife in and out, I realized, "This would be a lot easier out on the back patio!" Full boils here I come! Stay tuned for next week's episode...partial mashing. :)
 
Hang Glider said:
NBbeer - I brew on a propane "turkey fryer" just inside my garage with the door open - and that ceiling is about 8.5 feet, so I'll bet you're fine. We're boiling water (mostly) not frying, so there shouldn't be any oily particulate, just steam.
Click to expand...



Thanks hang glider! If all's well in your garage, I'm sure everything will be okay on an open porch. Thanks for the post!
 
My turkey fryer has been a blessing to my brewing. Full volume boils are definately the way to go. Top that off with the SWMBO finally not getting pissed about a totally messy kitchen and you could call the fryer a relationship saver! I would HIGHLY recommend picking up some type of foam control from your LHBS though. I'm boiling in a 7.6 gallon pot and can get 7.5 in without any worries of boiling over. After proving that this foam control stuff works though many brews, I don't even feel like I need to stay and watch the entire boil. I'll go inside, check the game, get a beer, and go back out to a perfectly smooth boil. Might be picking up a second one to possibly have two brews going at one time (extract/ag)
 
I picked up a turkey fryer off of CL a few weeks back, and I'll be using it on my next batch. It came with a 7 1/2 gallon aluminum pot. I went out to do a boil last weekend to condition the pot for my next brew day when I realized that I didn't have anything to light it with!! I quit smoking two years ago, and had thrown out all of my lighters. We have matches for candles, but I wasn't going to be putting my hand anywhere near that burner to light it.

Looking forward to my first outdoor brewday!
:ban:
 
I am very lucky, in that I started out with a King Kooker stove (not turky fryer) I got from Northern Brewer Right off the bat. 55,000 BTU available here:

NORTHERN BREWER: Burners

it is number 7320 on the page. I've never done a partial boil and thanks to that purchase I am ready for all grain.
 

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