Brupaks Stainless Steel Tanks

[fivetide]

I don't suppose anyone here has bought or seen one of the new(ish) Brupaks Stainless Steel Tanks, as stocked by Hop and Grape?

They are described variously at retailers as being good and sturdy, and appear to have better taps than the older burnished style pots. I can't work out what that 'sight level' style strip along the side really is though - perhaps it's just a sticker?

Love to hear some feedback from anyone who owns one (and some better photos) or has just seen 'em. They're a little pricey, but then so are decent large stainless stockpots these days.

 

[BrewStew]

it's for a sight tube... the tube will go in front of the sticker so you look through the tube at the markers.

they're damned expensive IMO!

i had a quote from brewpaks for a similar one and i was looking at way over £200 per 100L tank :shock:

 

[fivetide]

Yeah, I know, it is madness when a massive plastic bin can produce similar results. The problem with stainless is that 70L+ tanks are hard to find at the moment and when they do crop up they're in excess of £100 plus a lot of postage. They often don't have lids and are made of quite cheap materials with poor finishing, then you have to cut and fit a good tap and start thinking about elements and so on.

I'm not sold on the idea of Brupaks at all, I'm just looking at various options and wondered if anyone had seen 'em to judge the quality of the things.

Thanks for the info on the sight tube sticker thing - I have my kits now so that would actually prove handy.

 

[Frisp]

I cant see the point in a sight tube strip. When I commissioned my 100L Boiler (Thanks again V1) I used bottled water for my very first brew. Each bottle is 17P form Asda and holds exactly 2L Each time I put a bottle in I marked my sight tube with a thin permanent marker and only used numerals at the side at 10 L intervals.
Uber accurate and Uber cheap as the water was recycled as beer........

 

[fivetide]

Once I get to the stage of having a fully fitted and working tank complete with sight tube, I will have fun doing these final touches, although I may go for a score mark rather than permanent marker. Plenty to do until then though. Funding the new vessel, for a start.

 

[MEB]

and sight tubes only work with electric elements. Gas fired and they end up melting... I get too many power cuts here to trust electric..

 

[Aleman]

and sight tubes only work with electric elements. Gas fired and they end up melting... I get too many power cuts here to trust electric..

I've had sight tubes on my Kettles since I went over to gas many moons ago . . . still to melt a tube yet . . . Ok so they are pyrex glass in the sight tube, but even replaced with polycarbonate I would not expect them to melt . . . .Something I have just done but not yet implemented . . . Oh and the tubes are protected within a stainless tube

 

[steve_flack]

IMO these pots are the mutt's nuts of brewpots but they are incredibly expensive. Hop and Grape could get them as they can import all the Blichmann gear but I hate to think what they'd cost by the time they get here. As you can see from this list they start at $300.

 

[fivetide]

Yeah, I'd love a 15g Blichmann with all the bells and whistles, but they are unbelievably expensive by the time you get them to the UK, through H&G or otherwise.

I'd settle for Polarware, Megapot or any of the many other quality stainless brewpots brands on sale in the US too, but the freight rates are too high and hard to discover even if you were up for it - firms like Northern Brewer just don't think it's worth calculating a quote for something that's going to turn out to be prohibitively expensive for anyone in Europe.

...which leads me to the pots at the top of this thread again. With £5 P&P rather than $200, you can start to make an arguement for them... ...if you're shiny blind, like me. :shock:

 

[steve_flack]

The problem with Northern Brewer is that they use UPS so everything is ludicrously expensive to get shipped over here. I actually got my first pot from Morebeer in the US and it wasn't that expensive as they use USPS which is a lot cheaper.

 

[fivetide]

I actually got my first pot from Morebeer in the US and it wasn't that expensive...

Don't say things like that!

 

[steve_flack]

It was cheaper when USPS did surface mail (which took 6 weeks but was dirt cheap) unfortunately they now do everything by air apparently which costs more.

 

[fivetide]

By the way, H&G never responded to my lengthily written enquiries, so Nordic and BES got my money instead.

 

[BrewStew]

By the way, H&G never responded to my lengthily written enquiries, so Nordic and BES got my money instead.

that's shocking! :shock: (H&G not responding that is)

i've had nothing but good service from H&G

I wonder what went wrong there? :hmm:

 

[fivetide]

It's the website I think.

I buy plenty of other supplies from them and find Patsy very friendly, but anything that goes through that site is a bit dodgy and generally ends up with a phone order backup.

On this occasion I really needed to write all the various elements down, so it went pear shaped. No matter.

 

[Wez]

That is unusual for H&G :hmm:

 

[BrewStew]

perhaps a call/email to Patsy might be beneficial... i've read of others elsewhere having trouble with their new(ish) website design.

there's still one thing that irritates the hell outta me is having to click "search" as it wont accept the return key like every other website i've ever entered data into does :lol:

I'm sure Patsy doesn't want to lose business just because of a finicky website :?