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Seems like a good deal on a kettle?
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Sawdustguy
Well-Known Member
Thats kind of a bullchit answer. What if he intends on only doing 5 gallon batches?
I only really intend to do 5g batches and wish I had a 15g kettle. Some of the high gravity brews end up with more than 10g of wort. Now I have to collect in my 10g with space for boil. Then collect the rest in another container and slowly add it as the 10g pot boils down. I'll be on the prowl for a 15g or 20g pot probably 20 for when I can move up to 10g batches at a different house.
What he said.
30 quart is not big enough for a 5 gallon all grain batch (i actually do 5.5 gallons), no BS, just fact. can you get by with it? sure but you will be hating life on brew day when you are constantly tending to boil overs. I know because i bought the same pot, i used it twice before i decided it wasn't going to work for me.
If you only do extract you could get away with a 30qt. When i started i intended on never doing anything but extract. I now do all grain. when i started all grain i intended on never doing 10gallon batches. i now do 10gallon batches.
Just trying to save you some money and headaches.
I do high gravities in a 10 gallon pot quite often and I've never wished I had a larger pot. Of course I never boil more than 90 minutes which means I never start with more than 6.5 gallons of preboil wort.
You must have a decently small diameter pot. Mine has some serious evaporation. For a 60 min boil I have to at least 7g. 90 min boils I'm looking at 8g and 120min (high gravity 10.80 and up) I'll be using a second pot to hold wort in for adding during the boil. I do batches for 6g though figuring for trub loss in kettle and primary.
I have a large diameter pot. It's much wider than a keggle for sure. I do keep my boil a "low roll". Maybe you just have a crazy high btu burner? But yeah, I've always just figured I lose half a gallon per half an hour in the boil. I probably don't boil as high as most people either because I haven't had a boil over on this setup yet. Once the wort starts boiling, I'll turn my burner down to prevent boil overs but hot enough so it keeps a "rolling boil"
Your saying for a 5 gallon batch you'll collect 10 gallons of wort? How long do you boil? You seriously evaporate 5 gallons of wort during the boil?
Sawdustguy
Well-Known Member
I do high gravity brews also but I never have to collect double the amount of wort to do it.
I just did a 1.085 pumpkin beer on saturday. I had 10g total of infusion as outlined by my BS numbers doing a protein rest mash. Then I had 3g fly sparge. By the time I got to my boil volume I was still running off 1.030ish and higher wort. So I ran the mashtun dry still collecting 1.020 wort. I ended up hitting over 75% efficiency.
This one I boiled down for a while to add the extra wort before my hop addition. I only did 120m boil instead of 90m like I planned.
Captain_Bigelow
Well-Known Member
I would recommend 10 gallon pot,that is a little small and you will have to watch the pot for boil overs.
I brew all my 5G batches in a 32quart pot. I've not had a boil over since I started using it. Some of my batches have had some nice high gravities too with up to 7G collected from the Mash Tun.
It really depends on how you're setup. My electric rig just doesn't boil over.
It really depends on how you're setup. My electric rig just doesn't boil over.
