Morebeer Brewbuilt Kettles...Thoughts?

[cuse88]

Seems like a great kettle at the price and it's ready to ship immediately. I'd imagine these will replace the B3 kettles.

http://www.morebeer.com/products/brewbuilt-brewing-kettle-15-gallon.html

 

[orangehero]

What I don't get is the following from the ad copy:
"All the Brewbuilt kettles follow the recent trend to a 1.2:1 ratio where the height is 1.2 times the diameter. This is a proven commercial ratio that has been adopted in homebrewing to achieve a more consistent 10% evaporation rate during the boil. We do like this ratio for boiling. For Mashing we would prefer a little bit shallower but that is a small compromise. Dimensions for a hot-liquor tank, if you are thinking brewing system down the road, are irrelevant as any ratio kettle will do."

On Northern Brewer they talk about how it's "scientifically" determined. All of it is complete nonsense.

If you're using a gas burner the most important specification is the diameter of the pot (all else being equal) that mostly determines how much energy is transferred, the ratio has little bearing on the boil-off rate.

 

[cuse88]

What I don't get is the following from the ad copy:
"All the Brewbuilt kettles follow the recent trend to a 1.2:1 ratio where the height is 1.2 times the diameter. This is a proven commercial ratio that has been adopted in homebrewing to achieve a more consistent 10% evaporation rate during the boil. We do like this ratio for boiling. For Mashing we would prefer a little bit shallower but that is a small compromise. Dimensions for a hot-liquor tank, if you are thinking brewing system down the road, are irrelevant as any ratio kettle will do."

On Northern Brewer they talk about how it's "scientifically" determined. All of it is complete nonsense.

If you're using a gas burner the most important specification is the diameter of the pot (all else being equal) that mostly determines how much energy is transferred, the ratio has little bearing on the boil-off rate.

Have to make a sale some how ha.

 

[eko]

At $300 you're almost at the top of the line. What are the Blichmann's going for these days? Those are about the only kettles I hadn't looked at recently. Check out SS Brew Kettle. It appears to be the same pot, but it's $25 cheaper and it comes with a dip tube. Then there's MegaPot. Or for an even better price, look at Spike's kettles. They're on sale this weekend and you can get two horizontal welded fittings, which may prove more usefully down the line (thermometer access for smaller batches, sight tube, combo sight & thermometer, ...). It's not a tri-clad bottom if you need induction then that won't work.

I looked at a lot of these recently but couldn't justify the cost over a $100 Concord. Though I admit that Spike kettle has been tempting. In the end after all my research I determined that what I actually needed to do was simplify. So I'm using a keggle for my BK, selling, trading or storing two others and down sizing to a simple 10 gallon pot for my HLT.

Good luck in your kettle search!