No Frills Brewing

[sremed60]

I've done a few of the Brewer's Best 5 gallon extract kits and now I'm ready to move on to all-grain.

I bought a 32 qt aluminum tamale steamer at Target for $22 and that was my boil kettle. On the last batch I brewed I wasn't thinking and moved the pot straight from the burner to an ice bath to cool it down. That was a little too drastic for a thin walled aluminum tamale pot and the bottom crinkled up and in like a beer can. It doesn't leak but it has some nice creases in the bottom so I'm not comfortable using it again. I wasn't sold on aluminum anyway with the extra care that had to be taken in cleaning it.

So now that I've decided to go to all grain and stainless steel here's my question: Can I do it effectively with a 32 qt stainless steel kettle and a 5 or 10 gallon Igloo mash tun.

From what I understand for a 5 gallon batch you mash with roughly 2 gallons of water and then sparge with 3 gallons, (roughly), so you don't really ever need the full 5 gallon capacity. With an 8 gallon pot I can boil 6.5 gallons of liquid if I need to, as long as I'm careful to watch for boil over. And I could even do partial boil BIAB in an 8 gallon pot.

The valve and thermometer mounted on the pot make it convenient and I can almost see the need for them on a 10 gallon pot or bigger. But I'm not sure the extra expense would justify them on an 8 gallon pot?

Feedback is appreciated

 

[m00ps]

I did full boil 5gal BIAB batches in a 9gal kettle from adventuresinhomebrewing for a while. I only ran into issues with space on like imperial stouts. Id get their 2 weld kettle with the ball valve and thermometer additions

 

[jwalk4]

I have an 8 gallon brew pot and do full boils. It can be done. But I constantly fret about boil overs, and wish I had a larger pot.

For you, I would wonder how you plan to chill your beer again if your pot had valves and a thermometer. Depending on where your ice was, you might wan to consider the cost of ice in a larger area because I doubt your pot w/ valves would fit in a standard sink. Even if it did fit, I would worry about infections with submerging the valve in non sterile water. I would suggest investing in an immersion chiller along with the 8 gallon pot.