Kettle upgrade advice for induction

Looking for some advice on a new kettle.

I'm a novice all grain BIAB brewer, currently in a 25L aluminium stock pot on the kitchen gas hob, which I've done successfully for 8 brews.

I'm looking to move out to the garage and was thinking of using a Buffalo 3kw induction hob as I've seen some others saying they've had success with this and I'd prefer this to a gas burner if it's possible.

So I'll need to get a new kettle, which isn't a bad thing as I was also planning to get a bigger one to all me to brew full size batches of 22L or so into the fermenter.

Currently I'm looking at something along these lines:
High end brew pot 50L
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/mk2-high-end-brew-pot.html
Weldless 3 piece tap kit
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/weldless-3-piece-tap-kit.html
3" flexible angle temp dial
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/3-flexible-any-angle-temp-dial.html
1/2" pickup tube
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/1/2-pickup-tube.html

Any advice or comments? The other option is a SS Brewtech 15 gallon pot, which looks lovely but also quite a bit more expensive once I've added a temp gauge.

The main bit I'm not sure about is whether the pickup tube and doing a whirlpool will be good enough to prevent blockages when emptying to the fermenter. I'm not worried about getting crystal clear wort, just blockages.

I use a mixture of leaf & pellets depending on what's available and currently use nylon hop bags as I don't have a tap on my current pot and I no-chill straight to the fermenter, so this allows me to dump the wort out without any hop matter and I can chuck a bag in the fermenter.
I could continue to use bags, but would like the option of not doing so if it's easier, as cleaning them out at the end can be a bit of a faff and I might have to get larger bags if I'm doing bigger batches.

There's also hop-spiders, but I guess they'd have the same cleaning faff.

From what I've read, some folks have problems with bazooka tubes blocking with hop pellet mush and apparently a false bottom could interfere with the induction hob and affect the boil.

Are there any other options I could look at or am I worrying too much? My main criteria is something easy, reliable and works with an induction hob.

Induction hob, 3Kw, and the Ss Brewtech, is the way forward IMO. Its something Im considering for the near future...It don't come cheap but the 2 pieces mentioned are bullet proof, and there are loads of testimonials out there to back up this assertion.. Go for it...you know it make s sense..
AND then let us POOR PLEBS know how it goes for you?

Not heard anything about a false bottom affecting induction? Any idea how this could be?

It is very tempting, and shiny, very shiny

Halfacrem said:

Not heard anything about a false bottom affecting induction? Any idea how this could be?

Click to expand...

It might have been on another forum I saw it mentioned, JBK maybe, something about needing as much of the kettle base exposed as possible to get a good boil with induction and the magnetic force rattling the false bottom?

Someone had solved it by hooking the false bottom up out the way during the boil, but still attached to the tube, then lowering it into place near the end.

Edit: found it http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=75719&hilit=induction&start=15#p792066

Further discussion here: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=75995&hilit=induction

MrRock said:

It might have been on another forum I saw it mentioned, JBK maybe, something about needing as much of the kettle base exposed as possible to get a good boil with induction and the magnetic force rattling the false bottom?

Someone had solved it by hooking the false bottom up out the way during the boil, but still attached to the tube, then lowering it into place near the end.

Edit: found it http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=75719&hilit=induction&start=15#p792066

Further discussion here: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=75995&hilit=induction

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. The SS Brewtech false bottom fits the internal dimensions of the pot, so I don't think it's likely to move around in the same way that particular false bottom did. Having said that, it's pricey and it's not currently available from maltmiller. Apparently it's being redesigned and isn't in stock at the moment.

No probs.

Do you do anything currently to manage hops and gunk when draining your kettle Halfacrem? or does the little trub dam thingy in the SS Brewtech do the job for you?

MrRock said:

No probs.

Do you do anything currently to manage hops and gunk when draining your kettle Halfacrem? or does the little trub dam thingy in the SS Brewtech do the job for you?

Click to expand...

Since buying my kettle, I've only had the opportunity to do one brew! I have to admit I got caught out by the pick up tube and I ended up tipping the cooled wort through a sieve as the tube got clogged.

i have a brand-new induction hob in the garage gathering dust. It is one of these ...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005N8QRDI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

... and it won't work with my 15 litre pan because the diameter is too large ...

... but it works perfectly with a 10 litre pot that I hardly ever use.

As a result, I mainly use an old gas cooker out of a caravan and it works fine! :thumb: :thumb:

Hmm, that doesn't sound too promising Halfacrem, maybe I'll just be sticking with the bags after all.

Dutto that looks like a 2KW unit, which as far as I'm aware is also much smaller than the Buffalo 3KW one I'm talking about.

I'd originally intended to go down the gas burner route, but then started thinking about induction, but I'd read quite a few reports saying it would struggle to boil a full batch size. It took me a while to realise these were all from Americans with 120V power supply, so their induction hobs were under 2KW and underpowered for the job.

It's only recently I've seen experience from folk such as Halfacrem over here with 240V and therefore able to use more powerful units and it would seem 3KW will do the job.

I'd much rather go electric rather than gas if I can, so I don't need to worry about ventilation and there's no issue with running out of gas during a brew and the extra hassle of getting refills.
If going electric I like the idea of induction over elements inside the pot as there's less cleaning issues, less chance of melting the bottom of my BIAB bag and if the induction hob conks out during a brew, I can still relocate back to the gas hob in the kitchen in an emergency.

Other folk have been successful stirring the cooled wort to cause a whirlpool effect and leaving everything to settle for 20 minutes. This theoretically should pull most of the hop debris into the centre of the kettle and behind the trub dam fitted to the end of the pickup tube. I'm going to try this next brew, but until then, I won't know for sure. If that isn't great I'm going to get a false bottom as the idea of adding another 20 minutes onto the brew day to let the debris settle isn't appealing.

Dutto said:

i have a brand-new induction hob in the garage gathering dust. It is one of these ...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005N8QRDI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

... and it won't work with my 15 litre pan because the diameter is too large ...

... but it works perfectly with a 10 litre pot that I hardly ever use.

As a result, I mainly use an old gas cooker out of a caravan and it works fine! :thumb: :thumb:

Click to expand...

I bought a 30l pot with the idea of using that on my cooker. Wrong it does not work even though sold for induction.

Halfacrem said:

Other folk have been successful stirring the cooled wort to cause a whirlpool effect and leaving everything to settle for 20 minutes. This theoretically should pull most of the hop debris into the centre of the kettle and behind the trub dam fitted to the end of the pickup tube. I'm going to try this next brew, but until then, I won't know for sure. If that isn't great I'm going to get a false bottom as the idea of adding another 20 minutes onto the brew day to let the debris settle isn't appealing.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, let us know how you get on.

As I no-chill I tend to leave it sitting for 30 minutes to cool a bit before emptying into the fermenter along with the "flame-out" hops in a bag anyway, so that wouldn't be a hardship.

I think I'll try a spider/hopsock for now when I'm using pellets and see how that pans out and I can always try without it when using whole hops to see what happens.

I've had a quote back for putting together a pot from brewbuilder and it's working out about £70 cheaper than the Brewtech, so I think I'm going to go for that and that'll make a dent in the cost of the induction hob.
His pots also now have the volume markings etched on the inside, which was the other thing I really liked about the Brewtech pot.

Thanks for all the advice & comments.

I went for the 50L high end pot from Brewbuilder in the end and I've had word that it's been done, so it should be on it's way shortly. I'll post a pic when it arrives.

My Buffalo 3KW induction hob arrived yesterday and I did a test with a small stockpot I already had (7 or 8 litre I think) that happened to be induction compatible.

I filled the pot with 5L of water from the cold tap and then stuck it on full power with the lid on. I also did the same test later on the gas hob in the kitchen, here's the results:

Induction - Start: 18.3°C, 5 min: 57°C, 10 min: 92.3°, 12 min: Boiling

Gas - Start: 18.1°C, 5 min: 44.3°C, 10 min: 67.7°, 15 min: 87.3°C, 19 min: Boiling

So it looks like the induction hob will be much quicker for me on brew days.

On full power it is a very vigorous boil, I played around with lowering the power and it works by switching off and on, which below a certain power looks like boiling, not boiling, boiling, etc. However above around 1700W (it goes up in 100W increments from 500W to 3000W) it maintained a gentler boil than full power and I couldn't see the off/on/off/on effect.

So I'm very happy with that, I'll know for sure when my big pot arrives and I can test with a more realistic volume of water.

Good to know Mr Rock as i may go down this route myself in the future. Would you mind posting a link to your pot please.
Induction can make some really crazy patterns on the water when i pulses. I once saw what looked like a screen refresh which happened every 20secs. By the time i got my phone out it had stopped though.

I went for the 50L version of this
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/mk2-high-end-brew-pot.html

And also these bits
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/3-flexible-any-angle-temp-dial.html
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/weldless-3-piece-tap-kit.html
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/spider-hop-sock.html

I also got them to cut the holes for the tap & temp dial
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/hole-cutting-single-cut.html

If I'm not mistaken, the finished article looks like this (might even be my actual pot)
https://twitter.com/homebrewbuilder/status/745257338655936513

Just realised I'd said I went for the Brewtech when I meant Brewbuilder, I've edited the post now to save confusion

The problem with my induction hob is that it will happily boil a small pot that is less than the diameter of the hob but it refuses to work with the larger diameter pot.

If your Buffalo Hob is this one ...

http://www.nisbets.co.uk/buffalo-induction-hob-3000w/CE208/ProductDetail.raction

... the dimensions are 100(H)x 330(W)x 430(D)mm" whereas here ...

https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/mk2-high-end-brew-pot.html

... the 50 litre BrewBuider Pot is given as 450mm x 450mm ...

... which means that the pot will overhang the hob by 60mm either side and even cover up the controls at the front.

I regularly get things wrong so I really do hope I'm wrong this time and the combination works okay. :thumb: :thumb:

Yes that's the hob I bought, the 50 litre pot is 400mm x 400mm, I think you're looking at the measurements for the 70L pot.

I was aware there'd be a bit of an overhang, but have my fingers crossed it'll actually work.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the buffalo will do for a 100 litre pot