No, that’s good! The gray layer is oxidation which prevents AL from getting into your beer. Don’t scrub it off. You want and need that gray layer.
[quote=“sunshine22”]I am about to start my first homebrew and I found a reasonably cheap aluminum 32qt stockpot online. I boiled some water in it yesterday to sanitize it just because I was bored and the bottom layer has turned charcoal gray. Is this bad? Should I boil water in the whole thing to get a clean layer all around?
Thanks[/quote]
On a related (sort of) note, don’t spray or store StarSan in an aluminum pot. It will strip off that charcoal gray oxidization coating and make your beer taste like metal.
I wasn’t going to start a whole thread for this, especially since I am guessing it is buried somewhere in the history on this site anyway, but since the thread is here now…
I have a very nice SS 5.5 gallon pot I use for extracts. about 6 months I bought a turkey fryer mainly for the burner, BUT it did come with a 7.5 gallon aluminum pot.
assuming I don’t san star it as described above, is that pot ok to use? or should I stray away from it? I guess I have never really read about it, just always kind of stuck to the ss pot I had. But I would love to start to do full boils. I know it would be a bit tight with just a 7.5 gal but with ferm cap and a close eye I assumed it would be ok
I just boiled water in the pot for about an hour and a half. The bottom 1/3 of the kettle is charcoal, and as it gets up to the top its pretty spotty. Is this okay? any advice?
thanks
Yup, don’t leave chemicals in it or scrub it with anything metallic. Even if the layer of oxidation doesn’t look so good to you remember you will be boiling in the kettle so that will kill anything harmful to your beer.
If you do a search here you will find lots of info about aluminum pots. The bottom line is that in the past they were thought to cause Alzheimer’s but it is now known that it is not the case.
RDWHAHB
[quote=“sunshine22”]I just boiled water in the pot for about an hour and a half. The bottom 1/3 of the kettle is charcoal, and as it gets up to the top its pretty spotty. Is this okay? any advice?
thanks[/quote]
Did you boil your full pre-boil volume the whole time? Boiling a few gallons at the bottom won’t do what you need.
[quote=“fullhousebrew”] BUT it did come with a 7.5 gallon aluminum pot.
assuming I don’t san star it as described above, is that pot ok to use? [/quote]
You should be fine, just boil as much water as it will hold for at least an hour. Don’t scrub it clean to where you go through the oxidation layer
I boiled water at the highest point I could get it without boiling over for about an hour and a half
Well it is an 8 gallon pot? you should be fine. You will always have to watch for boil overs.
[quote=“fullhousebrew”]I wasn’t going to start a whole thread for this, especially since I am guessing it is buried somewhere in the history on this site anyway, but since the thread is here now…
I have a very nice SS 5.5 gallon pot I use for extracts. about 6 months I bought a turkey fryer mainly for the burner, BUT it did come with a 7.5 gallon aluminum pot.
assuming I don’t san star it as described above, is that pot ok to use? or should I stray away from it? I guess I have never really read about it, just always kind of stuck to the ss pot I had. But I would love to start to do full boils. I know it would be a bit tight with just a 7.5 gal but with ferm cap and a close eye I assumed it would be ok[/quote]
It’s fine. I have a bunch of ribbons for beers brewed in AL.
sounds good, thanks. this was a topic I was meaning to ask about for awhile anyway. sorry for hijacking the thread a bit. It didn’t buy the turkey fryer with the intent to use the 7.5 gal pot that came with it, but now that I have it might as well try some full boils. to date I have basically been stuck with 3 to 3.5 gal starting levels
My turket fryer also came with a 7.5 gal. pot and I found I couldn’t quite do full boils in it. Close but I still had to top off with about a gal.
ya my guess is I will start with about 6 gal or maybe 6.5, but get a lot of boil off and still have to top off with about the same as you. maybe in awhile I’ll take the plunge and get a good 10 gal one.
the outside burner thing is still kind of new to me. have done only 4 batches on it. before then it was all on my grossly underpowered stove. I LOVE the boil I can get with it, but even trying to keep it to a very gentle rolling boil I lose a lot more to evaporation then I did on the stove. I am starting with about 4 gal in my 5.5 gal pot, but by the time I am done still adding a good 2.5 or so gallons to get back to 5 in the end.
hmm… 10 gal brew pot. how could I get one of those… oh wait, father’s day is around the corner. hmm…
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywor ... wr4ehxyv_e
$40 for a 10 gallon pot is a good price and this got good reviews, including some from homebrewers. Happy father’s day.
