Help me decide whether or not to keep this brew kettle

[jharmon203]

I purchased a new 18.5 Gallon brew kettle for under $120. There isn't really much known about the company that I can find "vevor". Concord brew kettles seem to be very similiar. One member noticed that the steel is 0.8mm thick, but I think that is the same thickness as gasone and bayou classic and I think people have had decent luck with those. I wanted to move into all grain brewing while still being able to brew on my kitchen gas stove and I can't go much higher than the 17 inch height of this kettle.

https://www.vevor.com/collections/s...l-home-brew-kettle-brewing-stock-pot-beer-set

 

[Bobby_M]

There's nothing wrong with it except if you plan to BIAB, that thermometer is going to snag the bag.

 

[jharmon203]

I don't plan to hoist the bag out but rather use the drain, but thanks for your assessment of it.

 

[jimyoung]

I BIAB in a tallboy 8 gallon with a thermometer probe. The bag does snag, but I've used it now since 2014 without any issue. I made the bag myself, back then I didn't see any BIAB options locally. Now of course you can buy bags for cheap [other post]

 

[Yesfan]

I had a Concord kettle that looked a lot like that except the handle on the lid was where I could hang it on the kettle's handles. The biggest issues (if you want to call it that) I didn't like was no volume markings and boil off was a bit of a ***** since it is as wide as it is tall.

Good kettle for the money if you're not wanting to splurge on Blichmann, Spike, SS, etc.

 

[Coastalbrew]

I think that kettle is fine, but I'd suggest looking into some of the all in one systems instead. I used to do stove top brewing before I got my all in one system. Now that I have the all in one, you couldn't pay me money to brew on my stove again.

Cheers!

 

[jharmon203]

Yeah the concord kettle looks very similar to this one. I have a setup where I use a 5 gallong water jug that I hook up to my refrigerator water dispenser. I have marked on that gallon markers so I know how much water to put in.