kettle question

[jobiewon]

Stainless steel vs aluminum.
Pros and cons
Please help me I want to get a bigger pot so I can do a full boil.

[tavish2]

stainless is inert (sp?) and will not inertact with any of the chemicals/solutions in the boil. you can get cheap stainless kettles here http://bayouclassicfryers.com/ and http://bayouclassicdepot.com/

[DannyW]

At the risk of beating a dead horse...

Aluminum Oxide is nonreactive at wort pH, is less likely to scorch, uses less propane, is lighter to move around, and costs less.

[Mylo]

As Danny eluded to with his scorching comment - aluminum will spread out the heat from the burner more evenly. The best of both worlds is a stainless pot with a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two layers of stainless on the bottom. The only thing is that they are expen$ive.

From what I have heard a few times on the Session - aluminum is fine if you don't scrub the hell out of it (ie. oxide off of it) with a scrubbie.


Mylo

[Lars]

At the risk of beating a dead horse...

Aluminum Oxide is nonreactive at wort pH, is less likely to scorch, uses less propane, is lighter to move around, and costs less.

Yeah, but us rednecks like shiny things... ooooooooohhhhhhh shiny kettles!

[jobiewon]

How good is a cut Keg?

[DannyW]

Lots of people use them and they work just fine.

Upside is that they are big enough, stainless steel, lots of accessories exist to retrofit them into nice kettles.

Downsides are that the chime (ring of metal it stands on) can get insanely hot or even explode, they tend to boilover more easily than a purpose-made pot, and you should make sure you are not harming the source brewery by cutting the keg up.

[Mylo]

About as good as a 15 gallon stainless pot.

They will be probably the last things that I swap out of my current brewing equipment. So much other places to spend money - conical(s), more fridges, brutus scupture, etc. When I do, it will be for fancy ones that have a diverter plate or something.


Mylo