Charcoal Grill

[Conman2U]

Anyone ever try using a charcoal grill to heat your wort? My electric stove takes forever to bring to boil, and I have a turkey fryer on the way, but was thinking that this might be a cool tool to use in a pinch. Got the grill fired up for steaks in a bit, so I thought I would see how long it takes to boil 5 gallons. Will post the results. Question is, will this add or diminish the taste (or no effect)?

 

[likwidbliss]

I bet that 5 gallons is going to be way too heavy and the heat output won't be enough.

I did however use my fire-pit to make 5 gallons of beer two weeks ago. It worked fine and I am going to build a better fire pit so I can put wood under the kettle instead of taking it off to add wood.

If you can't wait then maybe fire-pit brew would work.

 

[Conman2U]

you didn't notice any off flavors, maybe a hint of smokiness? This is all for fun, My grains should arrive around the same time as my fryer, so I am just having fun. Right now the temp is about 160 in 15 minutes up from around 90...my stove took longer...BTW, I am not one to just stick my toes in the water, so I am going BIAB for my very first batch Droing BM's Cream of Three Crops...Seems simple enough

 

[bob1852]

There were some cool posts on here awhile ago about attempting a "historical" brew. No hops, wood fire to heat the wort, no scale to measure ingredients, no clock to track boil, no chill, etc....

 

[dfc]

My second batch I failed miserably while trying to bring my beer to a boil. My glass top stove wasn't cutting it so I had bought a camping burner with the screw on tanks of propane. That failed miserably. In a last ditch effort I built a fire inside of my grill. I used my firewood and no charcoal and got a nice fire going. That worked except every once in a while I had to remove the pot off of the grill, pull the screen off, add more wood, throw the screen back on and put the pot back on.

Soot ended up all over the outside of my SS pot and I had a hell of a time getting it all off. I did notice off flavors, but that's because I fermented too warm (it was my second batch and I didn't get my swamp cooler cool enough), but no smoked flavors.

Let us know how things turn out!

 

[Conman2U]

I am only doing a test run first brew is next Saturday....I screwed up the test. The sides were cooking faster than expected, so I had to move the brew pot to the side. Grilled a few steaks (burned a few steaks is more like it) and then slid the pot back over. In all that time, it had only been an hour and I just looked and it is boiling. Might have started earlier, but I had a burned peice of meat to choke down so it is doable.....Might be something to try once I get a few under my belt

 

[Daybis]

Soot ended up all over the outside of my SS pot and I had a hell of a time getting it all off. I did notice off flavors, but that's because I fermented too warm (it was my second batch and I didn't get my swamp cooler cool enough), but no smoked flavors.

Might be off topic, but bar keepers friend works miracles on soot.

 

[jbsg02]

I just got a 58,000 BTU burner, my 5 gallon batches are gonna be boilin' in no time!

 

[BuckNasty]

Going to be exploring this option further, as I am a cheap SOB and propane isn't cheap around my place. Tonight I boiled 5 gallons as a test run on my Weber performer pretty quick. The old weber performer is the kettle grill built into a stand, so it can balance the water weight pretty easily altogether.

There is a pizza oven kit sold for these grills, which is basically a piece of sheet metal wrapped around into a tube in order to lift the lid of the grill higher & give more space inside....with a large opening to slide the pizza in. This also feeds in lots of oxygen to bring temps up. My boil tonight was churning full blast, but I will be making a similar spacer of sheet metal to help maintain temp around my pot. I also sat the grill lid on top of the brew pot to hold heat. I like the weber idea cause I can use scrap wood also to fuel it.