Minimum Pot Sizes

[Williac]

Hi,

I know this topic has been beaten already on here (I've been through the table in the sticky thread and read through pretty much everything else) but I'm still trying to get some clarification now we're up-scaling. We're trying to set up a 1bbl brewery (2 full size kegs per brew) and pretty much all we're lacking now are the brewing pots themselves. We thought we had them but when we lopped the top off our potential ones we found the welding work was atrocious and unfit for beer making. Considering we're in a developing country, this limits our options somewhat.

One thing we've found a plentiful supply of is affordable 60cmx60cm stainless steel pots which by my calculation should be about 170 liters of volume. Is this enough for brewing 1bbl batches? I apologise if this seems repetitive but I need to confirm because the next option up from that is 3x the price! I notice that this setup uses 45 gallon vessels for a 1 bbl brew:

http://www.barleynvine.com/arubyg.html#.Vt_mR-aMkQs

We're using a full electric system and will be fly sparging.

Thanks in advance!

 

[madscientist451]

170 L should be ok for 1 bbl brew, but the 60cm x 60 cm pot geometry is not desirable. Basically you want a taller, narrow pot.

 

[Williac]

Thanks very much for the fast response! I agree, if we had other options at this point we would be going for something /larger/taller/both. These really are our only (economic) options at the moment as the next vessels you can buy here are 500l!

We can take measures to try and avoid boil-overs but are there likely to be any major considerations brewing 1bbl in 60cm x 60cm pots?

 

[madscientist451]

We can take measures to try and avoid boil-overs but are there likely to be any major considerations brewing 1bbl in 60cm x 60cm pots?

The main consideration is evaporation rate. The greater the surface area of your pot, the more evaporation/hr you will have for the same amount of energy that is applied. Brewing experts have stated that evaporation loss of more than 15%/hr can lead to flavor problems, but I believe that is at a large industrial scale not sure if it would make a difference on the 1bbl level.
You can also decrease boil rate and evaporation rate by turning down the heat, but again not sure if this would make any difference. If that's the only pot you can get, I guess you don't really have a choice.
Where are you located that is so hard to get a typical brew pot?
I live in a remote area ( in the US) and can have small items shipped directly from suppliers in China in about a week, never ordered a brew pot from there, but I'm sure I could.

 

[dmcman73]

If those pots are your only option and you experience boil overs, not ideal but there are breweries that do this, spit the batch and double batch into a fermenter if need be.

 

[Williac]

Thanks for the feedback guys, confirms a few of my suspicions.

We're in Vientiane, Lao PDR. We can get things sent in from China but it's more expensive than it should be given the proximity. The 60cm ones can be found in town for around $60 so it was definitely worth considering.

We may have a source who can fabricate something bigger in town though so we'll be paying a visit tomorrow. It's a really interesting project so I'll post up some photos when we get going, it would be the first craft brewery in the country.