buying a brew kettle?

[valhallaorbust]

hi i recently have gotten into making mead, and my friend wants to make a beer from a kit, and we have all the equipment except a brew kettle. since we bought all our equipment and used most of out allocated money i was wondering if it was possible to use a large pot with Teflon coating instead of a stainless steel brew kettle and why or why not
also what would be the advantages to using a certain one like enamel over stainless steel or vice versa

 

[wildaho]

My first brewpot was a seven gallon enameled steel canning pot that I bought new for around $15 (13 years ago). I made many, many batches of beer with it using two burners on my electric stove.

Aluminum pots are fine too. Ignore the myths about alzheimer's and aluminum. Check the Alzheimer's Society's web site for more info on that.

I've never used a teflon coated pot. What size is it? One big enough to make beer has got to be more expensive than aluminum or enamel. What are you using to heat it with?

I picked up on a heck of a deal a few years back. I snagged a brand new 9 gallon stainless steel turkey fryer pot for $55. It's perfect for doing 5 gallon high gravity all grain beers. Last year a welder friend of mine gifted my brew buddy with a handmade 15 gallon stainless pot. We've only made one 10 gallon batch in it so far but it works great.

Give some thought as to how you are going to heat your wort. Even using two burners, an electric stove will struggle reaching a roiling boil when doing full volume. I use a propane powered 160k btu turkey fryer burner now and it heats things up quickly. The burner ran me maybe $50 at Home Depot.

 

[akueck]

Enameled is fine, stainless is fine. Personally I'm not a big fan of Teflon-coated anything, since the coating tends to come off and it's not something that you really want to be eating. (though honestly it won't kill you)

Basically anything big enough to hold the volume you need will do. You can use a hollowed out tree or big stone pot if you like.

 

[valhallaorbust]

haha, ya i was just wanting to know if like a big pot in general would do because i didn't want to spend the money unless absolutely necessary, and i didnt mean Teflon specifically, just like a big pot, and yes i will be using a electric stove. do they have pots that are big enough to stretch across 2 burners or what? also, nice idea with the turkey fryer, might have to pick one up after thanksgiving

 

[wildaho]

The 7 gallon enameled steel canning pot I mentioned just barely stretched across the burners of my stove. Canning pots are made wide to accommodate a dozen or so canning jars. Most other big pots are tall instead of wide.

The canner took well over an hour to bring up to a boil and keeping it roiling was a problem even using two burners. There is just not much "oomph" in an electric stove.

 

[valhallaorbust]

thats so weird, i would have thought that to be the least of my worries, i have video on brewing beer from midwest and he never even mentions that!
thank you very much for bringing that to my attention!
it would have gone very poorly had i realized that as i was brewing

 

[Medsen Fey]

Yeah, it does take forever to bring 5 gallons to a boil on an electric stove. I have a gas burner to get it done. They do make electric heating elements that can dramatically speed up the process though you might look for a less expensive one if you aren't able to utilize a gas burner.

 

[valhallaorbust]

ya im thinking of going with the turkey fryer, but that wont be overkill will it?

 

[Vino]

ya im thinking of going with the turkey fryer, but that wont be overkill will it?

You can’t go wrong with the turkey fryer (propane or gas), even the lower end units produce 38k btu/hr, which is comparable to (6) 8” electric stove elements (2000 watts each)…resulting in much faster heat up times as well as better control of temperature.

I have a 160k btu fryer unit, and it brings 3 gallons of water to a boil quickly (less than 10 minutes).

The 30 quart size is fine for extract brewing, but if you decide to make the transition to all grain, you definitely need a larger pot.

Vino

 

[valhallaorbust]

ya, i think were going to be doing extract brewing for awhile. gotta keep it simple for now.