Aluminium boiler pot

[G-Town Brewer]

Hi
New to forum and All grain brewing, but am very much looking forward to brewing some proper beer in the near future. So apologies if my questions are a bit numpty.

I am currently trying to source some inexpensive kit to get me started. Someone has offered me a large aluminium cooking pot with lid which I estimate to be around 60-80l. I'm hoping that this will make a useful addition to my equipment. I have a gas bottle and burner which I can use to heat the pot.

Firstly, is aluminium ok to use in the brewing process? Also, would it be best to add a tap for draining. Could this be used for more than one part of the process?

Suggestions kindly appreciated.

 

[Cussword]

Aluminium is ok, some people use alloy kegs. A tap would be useful, & you can use it as hlt & boiler.

 

[G-Town Brewer]

Oh great thanks.

Also would it be feasable to use an immersion heater element to heat the water? I notice a lot of people adapt kettle elemements for this use, but have not read much about the use of immersion heater elements (maybe just looking in the wrong place)

 

[Springer]

Nothing wrong with Immersion in my opinion, I have two in my HLT and another two in my Boiler.

The issues are sealing the covers and cable entry points and whether you have the correct supply wiring to use them safely. I am no electrical tech-no trousers, but know that kettles etc have been down rated to 2.2 kw these days, for technical reasons. Someone will know the full details.
S

 

[G-Town Brewer]

Thanks Springer. My father-in-law is a sparks, so no woriies with the wiring etc.

Going to pick the pot up today so hopefully make a start in converting it this week.

 

[screamlead]

I can get hold of those immersion type heaters here but they seem to have thermostats on them to 85c. is there a way of disabling the thermostat so it will boil properly? I aint bought any yet but think i may be able to get a pic of one.

 

[G-Town Brewer]

Finally got round to converting my ali pot. Going with gas, as I already had a bottle, so just needed to buy a burner.

Added a hop strainer and a tap.

Pretty please with how it's gone so far. Thanks to the excellent info on this forum.

Next Phase is the Mash tun.

My pot holds around 100 litres, so from what I have read on here I should be looking at a MT of at least 50l. Is this correct?