Stock Pot

[Daver77]

How many people use 15 gallon stock pot for 5 gallon batches?

I mostly do 5 gallon but would occasionally like to be able to do 10 gallons.

I feel that a 15 gallon pot is way too much for a 5 gallon boil. The surface heat to water ratio would cause a lot more evaporation.

What are you thoughts, I'm in the market for a pot.

In between the 10 and 15 gallons

 

[npauley88]

I use a keggle for 5.5 gallon batches. You're correct in that causes excessive evaporation, I found that out the hard way. I typically boil ~7.15 gallons for 60 min boils

 

[AnOldUR]

It's more about the shape of the vessel than volume. Look for something that's taller than it is wide.

 

[brettwasbtd]

I use a 15 gallon aluminum stock pot for 5 gallon batches, well six gallon batches. The diameter of the pot is about 16" if I can remember correctly. I tend to boil off about 2 gallons on a hour long boil. I enjoy this cause I think it helps my efficiency. So my batches i gather 8 gallons of wort boil down to 6, siphon out 5.5 to the fermenter. So yes, the largest surface area will increase evaporation but is that really a problem? Also, boil off is a constant, so if you wanted to do say an 11 gallon batch on my system you would boil 13 gallons to start, leaving 2 gallons headspace, which could be pretty tight, but definetly doable.

Side story - My third all grain brew I thought I would start to heat my roughly 2 gallons of first runnings outside in the 15 gallon pot while i finished sparging inside. Gather my second runnings in a bucket and went outside to add it to the boil kettle and I was JUST IN TIME! Those two gallons almost boiled over my 15 gallon pot. I was shocked. So keep an eye on that pot before you have hot break.

 

[brettwasbtd]

It's more about the shape of the vessel than volume. Look for something that's taller than it is wide.

Yes, people with keggles have less boil off than my pot does cause they are more narrow