Boiler choice help...

[judasegg]

Hey,

Just doing kits at the moment, but trying to be forward thinking...

Basically, I'm not sure about boilers...for kits and extract I suppose I could just buy a big SS stockpot, but they are like £100. I'm wondering, can I use the same boiler for kit/extract/AG?

If so, I'm confused as to what to get, but here is what I've figured so far, regarding 5 gallon batch sizes:
1) Electrim 5 gallon - sucks *** and is too small
2) Brupaks 29 litre - has ball valve, hop strainer, but may be a bit small, expensive
3) Buffalo 40 litre - needs valve and hop strainer. Bigger and cheaper than Brupaks.
4) SS Boiler 50 litre - not electric, and VERY expensive (saw one on brewuk.co.uk for £250), would probably need propane

I'm eyeing up the Buffalo, but I searched the forum and saw people saying it was great for BIAB, but what about normal AG brewing? How easy is it to fit ball valve tap and hop strainer? Has anyone done this, what size/brand hop strainer and tap were used? I'm not mechanically inclined at all, I have no idea what goes into attaching a tap, or a hop strainer.

Any help would be great, i'm finding myself a little overwhelmed by all the things I need to get (chiller, mashtun, etc etc etc).

 

[andyb13]

I moved from an electrim 5 gall, to a buffalo 40L and was very impressed with it.

Fitting a ball tap is very easy, get a qmax cutter
( see this link and the later postings); i think the tap link is also here; if not I’ll find it for you

made my own hop strainer, and was very easy; now used it a couple of times and am happy with the results, there are some thing to learn, as i went from not having a thermostat, to having one; well the boiling cuts out when it hits temp; so you do need to remember to turn the temperature up when your sparing, and keep on eye on the temp rather than rely on the thermostat ( it can drop 5 deg C, before it comes back on).

I will take some pics and add them on.

I also just heat up the water mash in a separate tun, and them boil the wort in the buffalo ( these is sparing in the middle) and it seems to work fine.

I'm glad I got the buffalo, after using the electrim for about 5 years.

 

[Aleman]

The buffalo 40L rom Nisbetts is one of the best value electric boilers around, sure you need to change the tap, but that is no big deal and as long as you avoid the big chains like BnQ are very cheap (£4 from screwfix)

 

[judasegg]

yippee, just bought buffalo 40L from Nisbets. They are on sale for £125 inc VAT...was £131 to ship to IoM which is like, a miracle (I bought a 13L pot *stupidly* off fleabay and shipping was £11, the pot was only worth £30) :)

still need to sort hop strainer, tap, and mashtun etc etc, but at least I can do an extract batch without dealing with boilovers...

now to buy the rest...expensive hobby, lol. But kits are boring, I want to brew some real stuff :)

 

[Aleman]

:thumb: :thumb: