Turkey Fryer?

[DMartin]

I'm looking to graduate from partial mash to all grain brewing, but my financial situation is restricted and the equipment expense is a bit prohibitive.

Here's what I started thinking: I have access to a 7.5g outdoor turkey frier (it's not mine but i can use it whenever I want.) There doesn't seem to be a big difference between that and a regular outdoor brew kettle. I'll only be doing 5g recipes and using BIAB method.

Am I crazy?

 

[crazyseany]

I don't think so...

I have an 8 gallon and really you shouldn't have more then 6.5 gallons to start with. The biggest thing is at the beginning of your boil... You don't want to do a boilover... So have some fermcap or a little spray bottle of water....

 

[mrk305]

Lots of people (me included) use turkey friers. I use two for an 8 gallon boil.

 

[Erroneous]

Just be sure you clean it real well. Don't want peanut oil flavored beer

 

[bighorn_brew]

Scale recipes down to 3-4 gallon batches of beer and you should be fine.

 

[Ckarsanac]

If I were you, I would make sure NOT to wash it out before you use it!!!!

Turkey/Peanut Oil flavored IPA?!?!?!?!? ahhhh..... I'm in heaven!!

 

[BetterSense]

I brew 5-gallon biab in a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer and have no plans to change. The boil can be interesting but you can sparge a bit less for more headroom in the kettle, then top up a few minutes from the end of the boil. It helps with the limited headroom in the kettle, but really I don't have a problem boiling a full batch if I use fermcap.

 

[DMartin]

Should I pony up for the metal basket or is it not necessary for 5g brews?

 

[Ibrewaletx]

I just did my first BIAB (have done batch sparge in coolers previously) today in a 6.5g turkey fryer. I shot for a 3g batch and it worked well, probably could do a 4g batch next time fairly easily, although I usually do 2.5g - 3.0g batches anyways.
You're not crazy, and it is an easy way to do an all grain batch with minimal additional investment.

 

[RM-MN]

I just did two batches of all grain brew in a bag using a 7 1/2 gallon turkey fryer. The first one I filled it with the full volume of water, heated it to strike temperature, and added the grain. I thought I was going to overflow it before I got the last of the grain in there but I had half an inch to spare.

The second batch I only used 5 gallons of water instead of the 6 1/2 for the mash which left me with a little room in the fryer. I then used my smaller pot to heat water to sparge or rinse my grain into a smaller container while I brought the larger one to a boil. Once the hot break was over I added the remaining liquid and got a second but smaller hot break which didn't even try to boil over. Added the hops carefully and I was on my way to a full hour boil time.

 

[JimTheHick]

I splurged and got a nice 9 gallon ss pot and use the turkey fryer pot for the sparge. I can do 18 pounds of grain BIAB with about 5 gallons of water, but that is tight. I usually will augment with DME if I need higher gravity than 15 pounds will get me. Works great!!

 

[70Cuda383]

save the turkey fryer pot for your boil and build a mash tun from a cooler.

I built this mash tun for about $20. new 48 quart cooler from walmart, $18. piece of old 3/4" copper pipe--free (had it laying around) brass fitting for a 3/8" rubber hose to a 3/4 NPT thread to fit into the end of the copper pipe--free (had it laying around) and a length of about 5' of new rubber hose $5.

I just did a batch of wheat beer and got 7 gallons of pre-boil wort out of it. 9 lbs of grain, mashed at 155, then sparged out. my pre-boil gravity was 1.03 so had I boiled down to 5 gallons or used the full grain bill that I wanted to (LHBS was 3 lbs shy of wheat, so I used some wheat DME), it probably would have been very close to 1.05 gravity. --as it was, I added 3lbs of DME to make up for the 3 lbs shy wheat that i wanted, and also 2 lbs of honey, and ended up with 1.063

 

[70Cuda383]

it worked out well...I mashed, then did a full drain, and added my sparge and did a full drain, then did a 2nd sparge and drained it all into my brew pot.

 

[C-Rider]

If you are doing BIAB you can use a Colman type cooler round for your mash. W/the grain bag you don't need to build nothing into the cooler. If you can't go full volumne in the cooler you can always add some water to the kettle I do believe. Or wait till you get to the fermenter and top off there. Am I wrong?

 

[JimTheHick]

If you are doing BIAB you can use a Colman type cooler round for your mash. W/the grain bag you don't need to build nothing into the cooler. If you can't go full volumne in the cooler you can always add some water to the kettle I do believe. Or wait till you get to the fermenter and top off there. Am I wrong?

Nope. Good idea. I bought my pot before i even knew about BIAB.