pot too big?

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Opivy

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Alright, so I've been wanting to try an all grain recipe for a while now - and have purchased some items.

A propane burner (says bayou classic on it. it seems to get a pretty badass flame on it)

and the stuff to make an immersion chiller. (25 feet of copper and what not. after reading some threads i decided 25 feet would be sufficient. please tell me if i'm wrong because I haven't actually made it yet)

and instead of buying a pot, I've borrowed a pot from my girlfriends grandmother, which was used in the restaurant they used to own.

So, the thing is pretty old (and a little bit dirty, and as far as I can tell aluminum) and it's huge!

decided to find out how big, and I'm guessing around 18 gallons. I dumped 5 gallons of water in, which only came up about 5 inches. and the thing is around 18 inches tall.


Now, I'd really hate to have to buy a pot as well - but I'm wondering if this will suit me for a 5 gallon batch.

Mainly ofcourse I'm talking about chilling the wort with the 25 ft. coil.

After reading a couple more threads, I don't think it would bother me greatly to buy another fermenter and do a 10 gallon batch - but having that much boiling wort + pouring it seems a little scary to me.


Sorry for the long-winded post but I'm sure a lot of you realize how confusing this stuff can be. (especially all the threads I've been reading about aluminum and not to scrub it. how am I supposed to clean this thing out?!)

thanks in advance.
 
You don't want to be pouring 10 gallons of boiling wort, which would weigh something on the order of 80 pounds. With a huge pot you'll probably get more boil off than you otherwise would on a 5 gallon batch, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that. The chiller will of course be a problem.

To clean the aluminum, do what you've gotta do to get it nice and clean (even scrubbing), then either put it in the oven for an hour or boil some water in it to rebuild the passive oxide layer.
 
I Agree with MalFet on the boiloff. I use a 28 gallon Italian Kettle that was the economy variety offered by NorthernBrewer a few years ago. My spoon has marks at 7 and 12 gallons for 5 and 10 batches.

Additionally, you will need to stir a vigorous whirl pool to get a nice cone of trub and hop matter - if your pot base is wide you may only have a few inches deep of beer to work with from a siphon standpoint.
 
Yeah, I figured out how much it held by dumping 5 gallons in. it came up 5 inches, so i assume an inch a gallon.

I'm in the process of building a Immersion chiller right now, and since I don't know what pot I'm gonna use we're having trouble figuring out how tall it should be.

So do you guys think this pot would be alright for 5 gallon batches?
 
alright, - finished the IC chiller, and very pleased from building something this cool. We chilled 3 gallons of water in about 10 minutes -

But, I'm still wondering about the pot. I've given in to the idea I'll have to buy a new one - but I'm still curious what you guys have to say.
 
But, I'm still wondering about the pot. I've given in to the idea I'll have to buy a new one - but I'm still curious what you guys have to say.

Your pot is fine and will work very well...I would just clean it very well w/ something like a scotch brite scrubbie...boil water in it and call it good? Old aluminum pots are often heavily oxidized, perhaps don't look so good, and that is not a problem IMO.
 
Great, think I'm gonna give it a go tomorrow.

Will chilling be difficult? The wort chiller I built is at least a foot tall (well I can bend it down shorter)

but 5 gallons only goes up 5 inches in this giant pot (I've never seen any other 20 gallon pots but it's very wide). Will this sorta defeat the purpose?
 
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