I’ve got a nice 42qt Polarware brewpot with a ball valve but I am moving more to 3 gallon batches because of a developing beer surplus and wanting to keep the storage of bottles to a reasonable level.
In a 60 minute boil I lose about 1.25 gallons of wort volume.
Is there any reason to move to a smaller brewpot for 2.5-3.0 gallon batches? I’m probably underutilizing the pot but if I want to go to 5 gallons I can still easily do a full boil.
Is there a disadvantage to a brewpot that is too big? The one thing I’ve noticed is when moving the wort to the fermenter thru the ball valve it is difficult to avoid taking some of the bottom sludge. I haven’t been worrying about it too much since it settles after 2-3 weeks in the fermenter.
There’s that, but if you’re brewing inside on a stove, it might make more sense to have a kettle that’s more proportional to the burner. For 2.5-3 gallon batches, a 5 gallon kettle would be about perfect. If you know for sure you’re going to stick with the smaller batches, sell the big kettle and use the money to buy a good 5 or 6 gallon kettle.
