DIY PP brewing kettle

[snbrewer]

Hi guys,

I tried doing the John Palmer Cincinnati Pale Ale recipe last night which uses a partial boil method (dry malt extract, malt and hops steeped in 5-6L of boiling water on the hob, poured into 5-6L of cold water already in the fermenting vessel). Unfortunately, the largest ring in my hob only is only 2kW, which ended up being insufficient to get the 5-6L on the hob to a running boil (another problem might be that I am using a stainless steel pot; researching on the web suggests that I might have more success with an aluminium pot as aluminium conducts heat much more quickly than stainless steel).

As I have more than one fermenting vessel, and a spare kettle, it should be reasonably cheap for me to create a 4.4kW kettle following the instructions in this link. The instructions include installing a tap into the bottom of the vessel, so that the wort can be drained into the FV easily. However, I think this is unnecessary for me at the moment (and I think one of the reasons he suggests putting the tap in is that the kettle can also be used to transfer hot water into a mash tun, which I am not going to do for this brew). I was therefore going to cool the wort down with a coil cooler to 18 degrees C or so and then use an auto-siphon to transfer the wort out of the DIY kettle and into the FV. Can anyone see any problems with this? Do auto-siphons struggle with temperatures around this range?

Thanks for reading!

 

[aamcle]

Yup, try very very hard to get a Stainless kettle and old tea urn and stockpot anything. Do you want to trust thin plastic with 20+ Litres of boiling liquid near you?

Auto siphons are not reliable just use a normal tube and start it with one of these :-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LARGE-PL...999524&hash=item46709a8694:g:1v4AAOSwFe5XyGdz
they work well and are easy to sanitise.

ATB. aamcle

 

[simonind]

I'm planning to transition from kits to extract and then BIAB this year so last weekend made a DIY boiler with a couple of 1.5kw elements, a burco boiler tap and a Youngs Fermenting bucket. Holes cut with a stanley knife. I boiled up 15 litres as a test run and let it simmer/boil for 45 mins and it was fine. Stainless steel would be preferable but cutting the holes would have been a whole lot harder - the plastic seems stable at this temperature so I'm going to start with this. Just be careful and test for leaks and stability/solidity before you start brewing in it

 

[Ciaran12s]

My kettle is HDPE and it holds 35 litres of boiling wort very well. Never a leak or any kind of softening at all. It is much heavier duty than even my heaviest FV though.

I'm sure I got it from geterbrewed and they'd advertised it as suitable for converting to a kettle.

The valve isn't really necessary I suppose.

I would advise giving the burrs round the hole a good sanding down before fitting the seal.

 

[snbrewer]

Hi guys,

Thanks very much for all your advice. I have today bought a couple of basic kettles from argos and I'll put the large kettle together this weekend and see how it fares. I'll give it a test before using it to brew so at the very least I don't waste any ingredients when doing the first brew.

Best wishes.

 

[Gunge]

My kettle is HDPE and it holds 35 litres of boiling wort very well. Never a leak or any kind of softening at all. It is much heavier duty than even my heaviest FV though.

Mine is HDPE too and holds 50 litres, but never sees more than 35. Had it at least a decade and is still in fine fettle. I might go stainless when, and if it fails. At which point I'll paint it brown and shove a Japanese maple or summat in it as a garden ornament.