Kettle - wide or narrow?

[Piotr]

I do mashing and boiling in the same pot. Now I'm going to buy a new one, and I woder which would be better - wide, or high and narrow?
I'm pretty sure for mashing and sparging the wide one works better.
What about boiling? So far I use a wide kettle and I got terribly high evaporation rate ~ 30%. Immersion chiller doesn't work well either in this pot, it takes me ~20 minutes to chill to 30*C. Maybe high and narrow boil kettle would be a better solution?

 

[beerthirty]

I think for mashing and sparging a narrow one would work better. It would allow for a deeper grain bed which would filter better and pass more sparge water over each grain. Although the comparative sparge volume would be the same, the same water would pass over more grain versus a thin bed.
I think boiling pot would would depend on burner size for heating but a wider one would seem to cool faster because of more surface area and the ability to stir the wort with the chiller in place.

 

[z987k]

narrow will have less heat loss to air.

 

[mrbowenz]

I am a big fan of the taller and narrow, I am amazed so many brew pots are the reverse, as stated for all those reasons, deeper grain bed , less evaporation at boil, smaller footprint etc..I use the italian kettles from NB, mostly because they seem to be the tallest and most narrow.

 

[Piotr]

Well, I'm sure that for mashing, it is better to have thin wort layer - there is less vertical temperature difference that way.

Sparging - Mosher writes, for filtering he uses as wide kettle as possible - he says, grain layer should be not less than 4 inches, but no more than 8... I'm not sure how much is is in my pot, I must check.

Boiling - well... maybe here narrow kettle has some advantages, but I'm still not sure about it : after all we try to evaporate all the bad flavors off the wort, don't we?

 

[z987k]

yeah we do, but you don't need to boil off 1/2 your beer or spend a tank of propane to do it.
Tall+narrow is better for the boil.

 

[abracadabra]

I'd say that wider is better for boiling. Especially from an effeciency standpoint. And at $4+ a gallon LP gas is no longer a small matter.

Here's why: you expose more surface area to the flame so more liquid is also exposed to the hottest part of the boil pot, this would contribute to faster heating and getting the wort to a boil faster and less heat needed to keep it boiling.

If you don't believe that do an experiment yourself using the same amount of water in a flat pan vs a tall pot and see which boils first.

As far as the mash and sparge most people agree that grain bed depth is largely not a concern. If the grain bed were only an inch or 2 thick that could be a problem but as long as your sparge water covers the entire surface you'll be OK.

But personally I prefer a cooler as a Mash / Lauter Tun.

 

[z987k]

I'd say that wider is better for boiling. Especially from an effeciency standpoint. And at $4+ a gallon LP gas is no longer a small matter.

Here's why: you expose more surface area to the flame so more liquid is also exposed to the hottest part of the boil pot, this would contribute to faster heating and getting the wort to a boil faster and less heat needed to keep it boiling.

If you don't believe that do an experiment yourself using the same amount of water in a flat pan vs a tall pot and see which boils first.

As far as the mash and sparge most people agree that grain bed depth is largely not a concern. If the grain bed were only an inch or 2 thick that could be a problem but as long as your sparge water covers the entire surface you'll be OK.

yeah but you have the same large surface area on top giving off heat...

 

[abracadabra]

yeah but you have the same large surface area on top giving off heat...

True,

But of the 2 surfaces the heating surface is more important that the evaporation surface. Plus you could always partially cover the top if excess evaportion / heat loss were to become a problem. I doubt that it ever would be a problem since you are adding much more heat than you are losing.

 

[Germey]

I know it is frequently very dangerous to try and compare industrial methods to homebrewing methods, but, FWIW, the big boys kettles tend to be wide and short.

 

[sause]

Personally I would go with a wider pot for boiling because I think having a higher evaporation rate and being able to dial it down vs. not being able to boil enough off after I added my hops. Ever look at the stuff the big boys use? Big and wide. As for the mash tun each way has it's benefits and handicaps.