Upgrade Worth It?

[Markalanbrown]

I have been brewing for 2 years.
Year 1 2 gallon Brew Demon Kits and then 5 gallon extract kits.
Year 2 all grain using a cooler as a mash tun and an 8 gallon pot.
Now - I have a chance to buy a 16 gallon pot with a false bottom, thermometer, and a ball valve.
What advantages (besides simply size) will this offer me?
Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[kevin58]

As a mash tun you can mash bigger grain bills but will no doubt need a heat source to maintain mash temperatures. Your cooler will probably hold temps a little better.

Or you could use it as a boil kettle. The size will allow you to boil 10 gallon batches fairly easily and if you did BIAB it would be all you need.

 

[tellyho]

It's good to have a little extra head room in the pot. A 5 gallon batch in a 16 gallon pot might not work so well, if you have immersion chiller.

 

[jamorgan3777]

Depends which way you to with your process. That pot would make a really good BIAB rig that would handle high gravity as well as large batches.

 

[RPh_Guy]

5 cross posts is a little excessive.

I don't see any advantages to the larger pot.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I'm assuming your cooler mash tun is a 10 gal?

Your 10 gal mash tun can only hold 24 lbs of grain at 1.35 qt/lb.
Your 16 gal pot can hold roughly 38.5 lbs of grain at 1.35 qt/lb. So you can mash significantly more grain.

So, the bigger pot gives you the ability to make bigger, higher gravity beers.
It also gives you the ability to make bigger volumes of higher gravity beers, if you wanted.

Not sure of your setup but if you wanted to move to BIAB, you could do so with this pot as well.

I'm a sucker for new brewing equipment so I'd say DO IT!!!!

 

[doug293cz]

5 cross posts is a little excessive.

...

Yes, duplicate threads are strongly discouraged. They make it almost impossible for anyone but the OP to follow all of the discussion on the topic. The five threads have been merged into one.

doug293cz
HBT Moderator

 

[Markalanbrown]

I appreciate the early responses. I do have an 10 gal mash tun and was thinking of using the large pot as a mash tun (while on gas flame) and as a boil pot. Possibly buying a pump so I can recirculate the sort. Concerned about the immersion chiller issue. I made a holler by cooling up 50’ of copper tubing, wouldn’t that still work in the 16 gallon pot?

 

[SEndorf]

I'm not sure you could do a 10 G batch in a 16 G pot.

 

[doug293cz]

I'm not sure you could do a 10 G batch in a 16 G pot.

I’ve done 10 gal BIAB batches in my 16 gal pot. Depending on target OG, you may or may not need a sparge.

Brew on

 

[day_trippr]

I do 10 gallon batches with a 20 gallon boil kettle, typical pre-boil volume is 13 gallons, so I'd expect as long as it isn't provoked to a boil over (which frankly could happen with my 20g kettle) I think one could use a 16 gallon boil kettle just fine.

But it's not clear at all if the kettle in question makes any sense for the OP. How big is his existing mash tun - with the FB the new kettle would be an obvious upgrade over a 5g or even 10g cooler, not so much if his MLT is even larger. How big is his existing BK - and would replacing that make sense if his MLT isn't big enough to get to 10 g batches. Or does he want to go BIAB - in which case existing equipment is likely irrelevant...

Cheers!
[edit/ps] I think these are all essentially the same set of questions...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/false-bottom.671630/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/buy-a-bigger-pot.671629/