Beer Forum

I am looking at new equipment for upgrading to full boils and soon to AG and I have a chiller question. I am currently looking at getting the 30 quart bayou turkey fryer for about $50 at Ace Hardware. Is that big enough to get a 50 ft immersion chiller in or would that be too large for this? In the pictures it looks as if the sides of the burner come up and around the pot a bit, if I put a spigot on it will it be really high off the bottom so I would have to siphon the last gallon every time? Would the braided tubing for a water supply line work as a strainer for the brew kettle?

Also, does anyone have an opinion on this set-up or is there something else out there that is better?

Thanks guys.

I have a 30 qt pot and 50 ft chiller and it works just fine. Not much help on the other questions, though. I would think you could still put the valve close enough to the bottom, or just use a wort pick up tube like the one in BYO a couple months ago.

Unfortunately I do not yet have a subscription to BYO, was it the type of tube that goes with a false bottom or just a simple 2 inch dip tube?

Basically it consists of a copper male pipe thread fitting, copper tee, 90 degree elbows, copper end caps and short hard copper tubing. You connect the tee to the thread fitting, which threads into the bulkhead behind the ball valve, then you cut pieces of tubing to add to either side of the tee, add the elbows, and then add more short pieces of tubing and angle them down to the bottom edge of the pot, add the end caps and drill holes to the bottom of the caps to make the holes as close to the bottom of the pot as possible. The ends need to be as close to the inside wall and bottom as possible in order to pick up the max amount of wort. Hope that helps, if not, let me know.

I'm assuming you mean something like this http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=31646 but with copper tubing on the ends and not the mesh.
If you put the tubing as close to the bottom as possible do you run into problems with sucking up trub, or do the small holes filter it out? Are you drilling holes along the length of the tubing or just small holes 1/4 or 1/8 inch holes in the end caps?

Kinda like that only much smaller. The whole thing is an inch or two from the wall of the kettle. You can adjust the length of the tubes accordingly if you pick up too much trub. I whirlpool and let settle for 20-30 mins before transferring the wort to the fermenter. This eliminates the problem. Same goes for the holes in the endcaps. Mine are on the bottom of the front end of the cap so that they are as low as possible.

Will plumbers tape on the threads stand up to the heat of a boil?