Hypothetical Electric Brew Kettle sizing

tominboston · January 9, 2018, 8:32pm

Seems when left alone to think … I start down the dangerous “what if” path. I first started thinking how convenient it would be to have a small electric kettle to get my strike water going while I am doing other prep work. When reviewing past brew days, heating strike water and then the sparge water seems to always create small panic phases for me as the water is either too hot… or worse too cool and taking too long to heat. So having an electric kettle with some sort of control would be really nice. So then I think, well for a few bucks more (relatively speaking) I could go to a full electric boil kettle … then of course I start thinking about increased batch sizes… for again of course, a few bucks more.
So if someday I want to do a full 10 gallon batch (as I see my kama citra keg is about ready to kick, again), it looks like I would probably need a 20 gallon kettle to avoid having boil over issues. If I had a 20 gallon electric kettle (like a blichmann), would it still be possible/ reasonable to do a 5 gallon batch (7.5 gal pre-boil) in such a large vessel ? I still envision doing 5 gallon batches as well as some 10’s, and will certainly do 8 gallon batches split between two kegs until I get a larger mash tun.

Thank you for any input.

sneezles61 · January 9, 2018, 11:01pm

Look back at my electric kettle build up… I will never look back… For the time you spend doing 5’s, you can do 10’s… And it doesn’t have to all be the same… I did an IPA and ESB Sunday… Things went awry, I was aiming for 1.061 and ended up at 1.074 on the IPA!! On 22 pounds of malt!! I use one kettle for the my brew days, and when doing a split batch… figure out a base, pull out the high gravity, the have specialty malts that have been steeping to add to whats left… SHAZAAM… 2 different brews! I just wished I could of figured this out a long time ago… Sneezles61

tominboston · January 10, 2018, 1:05am

Thanks sneezles… but you are light years ahead of where I am at right now. I will check out your thread (again). I remember reading it when I first started but maybe I have learned enough to better understand it now.

sneezles61 · January 10, 2018, 2:21pm

You can ask all question you want… I’ll do my best! Sneezles61

dannyboy58 · January 10, 2018, 7:00pm

Re Kettle size…I have 16 gallon kettles and do 10+ gallon brew days regularly. Since I BIAB one kettle is a MT/BK and the other is a HLT. I’m also considering turning them electric. I’m perfectly happy with the size. Plenty of space for mashing. Fine for 5 gallon batches too.

Brewing today I over sparged and ended up with 14 gallons at the start of the boil. I usually start with 13.25 and end with 12 aiming to put 5.5 in each fermenter. Today, I had to nurse it through hot break and keep an eye on the boil a little more than normal but no big deal. 20s would be nice but I find mine work just fine. Then I’d never spend the money on fancy branded kettles…I have Bayou Classic kettles. If I had more expensice ones I’d guilt myself in to cleaning them better.

tominboston · January 10, 2018, 8:36pm

Thanks Danny, good to know. I think I need to cool my jets a bit before moving up. Maybe its better to get up the experience curve by brewing more smaller batches anyway. I will watch craigs list to see if I can find a brew pot to mangle as an experiment. I will look around and see if there are any <20 and >15 gal. I don’t think I would ever have to go beyond 10 gallon batch size. I prob need to take some of the “pain in the a$$” factors out of my brew day like lugging it all up from the basement, driving to the grocery store to buy 10 gallons of spring water… Then it may be easier to schedule more frequent brew days. Really looking forward to moving to a house that I can set up a dedicated brew space.