New kettle suggestions?

[David Malpas]

Hi All,

I'm currently brewing partial boil extract + steeped grains in a 20litre cheepy pot from trademe.

I'd like to start doing full volume boils, so figure I need something like a 30L pot to finish up with 20L in the fermenter.

Does anyone have any suggestions of where I can get a reasonable 30L or bigger kettle in Auckland? I'd rather not go down the flimsy trademe pot route this time and ideally would get something with a base that is of a reasonable thickness.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks!

[JR]

You can go cheap on trademe

 

or get a keg and cut the top off

 

or pay the money and get a great one http://www.inibrewsupply.com/boil/ if your quick there seems to be one with some cosmetic defects for a little cheaper.

 

 

[David Malpas]

cheers - I've lusted after the bilchmanns on the INI brewing site - but they're probably a little out of my price range...

[Chris Mills]

Try checking with Chris Banks -  http://banksbrewing.blogspot.co.nz/p/kettles.html

There's a good chance he may have a kettle that size ready to box up and ship out to you.

Something to consider: if your goal is ~20L in the fermenter and you boil vigorously for an hour you'll likely want something a bit larger to avoid boilovers and also allow for boiling down to your target gravity. So a 36L pot might be a good place to start - or maybe even a little larger. I've found that I like having a good 150mm plus of head space during boiling to keep everything in the pot when I do hops additions.

Cheers,
Chris Mills

[David Malpas]

thanks - good advice, I'll send Chris an email.

[Druid]

I do 20 litre batches and my BK is 46 litres - to be honest, I'd be struggling with anything less when doing my first hop addition. I often wonder how 36 litre BIAB kits cope with boil overs.

There's a Chinese kitchen engineering place on New North Rd, just to the west of Mt Albert beside the big Asian grocers - I have gotten all my pots from them.
I've noticed some variability in quality but if you push the guy to look at all of his stock, you can usually find a good one. From memory the 46 litre pot was around $150.

[David Malpas]

Good advice, I actually live about 2 minutes from the asian grocers in Mt Albert - so will pop along this weekend and see what's what...

[mattd2]

Check out some scrappies for kegs, most sell for the price of scrap stainless (I'd guess about $60 at the moment). Pretty good for a 50 litre pot.

You will probably have to talk to them in person though.

[Jason Franssen]

Keep an eye on the one day sale sites. I've got two of my 30L pots from www.crazysales.co.nz

Might not be as thick bottomed as you'd like, but they do me fine.