Brew on a BBQ

[Chris P]

I know people on here generally use burners but I was wondering if anyone has experience using their barbecue for brewing?

I am looking at getting a burner in time but I am keen to stop buying equipment and keep trying to improve on my grain brewing. My stovetop is not up to the task at all and so I was wondering if there is any reason not to go ahead and use the BBQ for a full BIAB. I was thinking of making 15-20 litres at a time and sitting my pot on the elements.

Any feedback welcomed,

Chris

[Chris P]

At some point I may look at this set up then: http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/camping-outdoors/cooking-food/two-t...

Mainly due to the free shipping and the fact the reg. seems quite cheap too. Will this be sweet for what I am doing? 20ish litres at a time? Also is low pressure the way to go or should I get a different reg. to do the job?

Sorry for the n00b questions... I just want to get sometime to do the job... well... for a long time without much upkeep/repair! 

[sockmerchant]

Pretty sure the reg on my 3 ring is a low pressure. Does the job pretty well

[Liam Callaghan]

If you are going to use the three ring one like that I'd recommend you maybe start with hot water from the tap, a cowl around the bottom of the keg to enclose the flame wouldn't go amiss either.  Use a lid on your kettle when you can if your heating and possily insulate - not so eay this with gas though. 

I found them really slow but I was heating 50 litres.  Not bad for a starter although they are more expensive than the high pressure ones that do the job in a lot less time.  My mate used it for a while as well and he had lots of trouble boiling on days with a bit of breeze.

http://kingkooker.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cP...

There are much cheaper options, no time to scour the web now but this one has the regs, burner, stand and cowling plus a heap of other stuff you don't need.  Have a googele on King Kookers by metal fusion.  54k BTU and that is a moderate high pressure.  Some of the jet burners run upto 105k BTU and will sound like you have a Harrier in your shed.

Nothing wrong with what your looking at though, just work around it to make the most from it.  makes a really good burner for a smoke house if you fancy making bacon and hams thats for sure!

[Michael]

T help hold the heat in with a three ring, I used to stack bricks, and set the pot on them, and put the burner between them all as there was now a wall to block the wind. Now I have a keggle with a nice shroud that Banks brewing made. Soon, it will be electric, just as my HLT is.

[Sam DT]

Hi, 

Bit late to the conversation but thought I'd share in-case it comes up in the future. Did exactly this over the weekend owing to the apparent NZ wide shortage of triple burners at the moment.

Basically pulled the plates out of my 3-burner BBQ and sat my '70L' (about 67 in reality) across the internal shelf which sits about 20mm above the burners. It's a perfect fit by absolute fluke - I wouldn't try resting your pot directly on the burners as they might break & I believe you need a bit of stand off to get optimum flame. Also I doubt you'd get much heat resting your pot directly on the plate. Initially I just pushed the plate and lid up against the pot on either side to stop heat loss and got a solid rolling boil but a mate of my old man knocked up a mint cover which now fits perfectly around the pot. Knocked out two BIABs in the weekend and managed a solid rolling boil will all three burners down to low.

Keen to eventually try out a double batch but will need to do a bit of a structural upgrade as I don't fancy spilling 50L of hot wort on myself.

Couple of pics below,