Which came first, the wort chiller or the turkey fryer?

[LTownLiquorPig]

Got $50 burning a hole in my pocket. Do I buy a turkey fryer set up or make a wort chiller? I'm kit and kilo right now, but a real HBS opened up within range, and I'm leaning towards moving on to bigger things....

 

[huntingohio]

I vote MLT and wait a couple weeks til everyon puts there turkey fryers on craigslist cheap... that way you can do both

 

[Yooper]

A chiller first! Using a turkey fryer is great, and will allow full boils of the wort. The thing is, if you can't chill 5 gallons of boiling wort, then a full boil isn't very practical.

But if you have a chiller, you can use it even on a smaller boil to chill the wort fast and do late additions of the bulk of the extract and that would work great.

 

[Gear101]

I made my chiller myself, for under 25usd. I would go with the chiller and wait for after the Christmas for the fryer.Sam's Club has a 9 gallon for 69 usd right now, after the term of the year, the leftover stock drops to 49.

 

[Paulfrank]

Why does a chiller help with a late extract addition? I'm not saying it doesn't, just an honest question.

 

[Paulfrank]

Never mind. You're saying to not worry about partial boil, just do late addition to make up for it. I think. Sorry for the pointless post.

 

[Yooper]

Never mind. You're saying to not worry about partial boil, just do late addition to make up for it. I think. Sorry for the pointless post.

It's NEVER pointless to ask a question! Because I think my post was poorly worded.

I prefer full boils. But if you can't do a full boil, doing a partial boil with adding the late extract addition is a pretty good facsimile. You can still use a wort chiller to chill a partial boil, so it's still useful, and then buy a turkey fryer burner in the future after you have the chiller. I hope that is a somewhat better explanation of what I was trying to say!

 

[Paulfrank]

Perfect. Thanks again, Yooper. You're a wealth of knowledge. I actually do the late addition move because of your recommendation in other threads.

 

[HoppyDaze]

A chiller first! Using a turkey fryer is great, and will allow full boils of the wort. The thing is, if you can't chill 5 gallons of boiling wort, then a full boil isn't very practical.

But if you have a chiller, you can use it even on a smaller boil to chill the wort fast and do late additions of the bulk of the extract and that would work great.

This!

 

[45_70sharps]

You definitely want to chiller first.
You manage to get it hot enough right now, but efficient cooling is very important and you can't do that yet.

 

[LTownLiquorPig]

Thanks folks. That's where I'm leaning, but I'll clarify..... I do 3 litre partial boils with about a cup of extract (by my math that gives me 1.040) to get some bitterness and flavour from added hops. Should I put off either until I can do both at once? Or make my chiler and save again for the fryer set up?

I live in Canada, beer, brew gear and shipping all cost a fortune, so I got into this to save a few dollars. Now I can see an avenue to take it farther.

 

[45_70sharps]

I would still get the chiller first.
With your small boil volume the stovetop should be working fine for now.
Probably before I got the fryer I would look at finding a nice brew pot so that I could do a big enough batch to justify all the time.