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Kettle Size

 
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GageP




Joined: 09 Jun 2017
Posts: 1
Location: Montana, US


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 5:51 am    Post subject: Kettle Size Reply with quote


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Hey Everyone,

Couple questions..

I am getting close to getting my entire setup finished (after a couple years of working) and i am concerned that i ordered my kettles a bit small.

the kettles were the first things i ordered when i decided to take on this project and i bought 7.5-8 gal kettles (planning to brew 5 gal batches).

I was wondering,

1) what kind of limitations is this going to place on my setup? I plan on brewing lots of IPAs and i know dry hopping further reduces final volumes

2) Any kind of workarounds for my situation? (Creating a concentrated wort and then diluting during boil?)

3) decided to go for the hosehead controller, anyone have any feedback on using this system?

Thanks,

-Gage
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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 12 Dec 2010
Posts: 11116
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Drinking: Pub Ale, Electric Creamsicle, Mild, Pliny the Younger, Belgian Dark Strong, Weizen, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Gage,

To avoid any kind of limitations I tend to recommend kettles twice as big as the final about of beer you want to produce. So if you want 5 gallons of any type of beer imaginable, 10 gallon kettles will ensure you're not limited in any way. Smaller kettles may have the following limitations:

(1) Boil kettle: You may not be able to do longer boils (like 2-3 hours for a Barleywine), or have as strong of a boil as you like (low boil off rate)
(2) Mash tun: You may not be able to do very high gravity beers as there may not be enough room for all the grain

You can of course get around both by making less beer or by diluting like you mentioned, but diluting itself can have negative repercussions depending on the beer, the amount of diluting, etc. Generally speaking the best beer is made by always doing a full wort boil (no dilution).

Diluting does not help you with (2). If you don't have a big enough mash tun for what you want to brew you can add sugar to the boil or post boil to raise the gravity, or add malt extract to the boil. Not ideal either but it's a solution. Most will probably just make a smaller batch.

Good luck!

Kal

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VaWineSnob




Joined: 14 Jun 2011
Posts: 89



PostLink    Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To add to Kal's recommendation, I started with 10 gallon kettles as I only do 5 and 3 gallon batches. After my second boil over, I threw away the 10 gallon boil kettle and bought a 15 gallon boil kettle. I've yet to have a boil over with the 15 gallon.
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




Joined: 22 May 2013
Posts: 737
Location: The Ozark Mountains of Missouri


PostLink    Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2017 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

twice the size is right, I have all the sizes of pots 5 to 25 gallon and you can brew a 5 gallon batch with a 10 gallon pot just fine but big beers are tight and an 8 works fine for extract but not all grain unless you add water later to your fermenter I was the happiest with a 15 gallon just less worry is all
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