I am looking to slowly upgrade my system so I can do big batches. How would boiling a 10 gallon batch (12 gallons of wort) in a 26 gallon pot work? Would it be ok? Anybody do this already?

I want to slowly buy my system piece by piece instead of forking out $5 grande right out the gate. I will continue to use my cooler to mash in and just get the first big pot now if it is ok to boil less wort in it. What are the ups? and downs?

Thanks!

As I understand it, you usually want a pot about twice as big as your batch. You should be fine with that. I don't think that it will hurt anything.
But, what do I know?

There is no problem doing a 10g batch in a 26g pot. I just got one and did a 12g batch 2 weeks ago(I like to leave wort in the trub in the kettle and dont care about brewing an extra gallon or two).

Since you stated a 26g pot, I can only assume that you are looking into a morebeer 26g pot.

The trub settles really well in the pot(coudl also be that I am now adding my whirlfloc 10min or less as opposed to 15-20)

The issue I have with the pot is surface rusting at the top of the kettle. If you look around the forums you will see that alot of people like the kettles, but that they rust much easier than other kettles.

If I were to do it all over again, I would have gotten the 100qt polarware kettles or got a Blichmann. I was originally looking at the 20g Blichmann, but to tell you the truth I like the extra space for 18g batches so that I can fill three carboys and still have wort left in the kettle.

Thanks for the replies.

Any one have any input on the brew pots? what manufacturer to buy from? Any input would be great! thanks!

The physics of water won't allow you to bring 10 gallons of wort to a boil in a pot that can hold 26 gallons.

It has something to do with the Dioxygenic-thermalexnophobic nature of water in the presence of so much empty space. As the water seeks to occupy the unused part of the pot the natural thermodynamic event takes place of lowering volume and temperature as the water deconstructs through a vapor phase change point. This is exacerbated by the fact that vapor pressure is affected by the addition of heat. The result is that no matter how many BTUs you pump into the bottom of the pot the water will simply seek to change phase to fill the rest of the pow trying to achieve homogenous phase of water throughout.

So the long to short is you cant get there from here.

;-p

As for brew pots:
If it's SST or Aluminum you are golden.
I've run into the problem of rust in most Chinese Stainless Steel. Most pots are now made to work on induction cook tops because, as we all friggin know, EVERYBODY on the planet will have induction cook tops by maybe the day after next. So they are using a 400 series Stainless. But there's a catch (hey it's friggin China there is always a catch). The friggin Chinese SST sucks. They don't use enough chrome or nickel to actually get the stainless to self passivate. So the metal rusts pretty damn quickly after exposure to many food acids or heat.
Isn't that nice? Came to me as a really butt-fuggin-ugly surprise.
So if you can, pester the retailer or manufacturer to determine whether the pots are 400 or 304 SST. You want 304 if you can get it.
Brown Halco makes an aluminum pot that is fully 1/4" thick. I almost got their pot.
1/4" means you can drill and tap your threads right the hell into the pot for all your ports and valves and dip tubes etc.

I make 12 gallon (15.5 gallon pre-boil) and sometimes 18 gallon (23.2 gallon pre-boil) batches in my 26 gallon MoreBeer kettle. I get a nice rolling but even boil and the whirlpool is to die for. (No offense Cliff, but fuck physics!)

Tasty

I just got my pot! Its huge! so awesome, but I want to but the ports in it. I am going to take it to a welder, I bought the stainless steel couplings.

how many inches off the bottom of the pot should I put the coupling for the "Out" ball valve? The site glass? and the Thermometer?

Thanks

You may want to tell Tasty and Krizwit that they should stop breaking thermodynamic laws then as they don't seem to have a problem doing it or anyone else that I know that brew 10's in 25 or greater capcity kettles.

I not sure about what you are posting, however, I believe it to be false, by your statement then you could not boil a gallon in a 2.6 gallon pot either, which I think everyone would agree is not accurate as about everyone has done this on their stove. You may want to go back and re-evaluate what you have read, you may possibly not be interpreting the data accruately.