Concord stainless pots

I have run hop bags through the wash, after cleaning out the crud (from hop pellets) by hand. As long as the rinse cycle is sufficient, I don't think there should be a problem.

 

Hop bags? Why would they need anything else than a nice, long, soak in PBW or EZ Clean? I just soak mine in EZ Clean and rinse well. Done.

 

Same here. I empty, and rinse them.. Will store them in my bucket of star san for no reason other than because it's there. They go in the boil. As long as they are clean, I don't do anything else with them.

For the bags I use in the kegs when I keg dryhop, I'll soak them in PBW or oxyclean free, to remove the stains for the hops and beer. Rinse twice, soak in starsan, and ready to use.

 

1mm is a pretty thin wall for such a large kettle. How big of batches are you planning on doing??

 

i have never used that kettle. never even had the chance to see one.

i can tell you this for certain. there is no magic bullet when it comes to making a kettle. these things are virtually all made the same in our world. this manufacturer does not have an inside line on stainless steel. nor do they have some proprietary way to make less material do more.

there are two ways to make a kettle cheaper. one is to lower the cost of labor. two is to reduce the amount of materials. rest assured that many manufacturers are already using the cheapest labor available. eliminate all the bells and whistles and the labor is reduced even further. this pot has zero bells and whistles.

so that leaves us with material. and this kettle obviously has very little. a glorified garbage can if you ask me. and the stainless is most certainly the lowest grade around. not to mention the thin gauge used. the thing is 20 pounds for heavens sake. compare that to a stainless keg, which 62 quarts and weighs 30 pounds. you get the idea.

all that said, it may very well do the job for you.
Cheers.

 

I use Concord kettles. I bought them from spikebrewing.com with welded fittings for my three vessel all grain system. For comparison the Blichmann kettles are 1.2mm thick and the Concord kettles from Spike Brewing are the same (18ga = 1.2mm thick). The kettle you are looking to by is 19 gauge and probably will work fine if you treat it carefully. It is 20% less material. Don't expect there to be no difference in heat retention or conduction. You will get what you pay for when it comes to stainless steel. Buy once, cry once.

 

why not just go with keggles for now and should you ever open a brewpub then you can invest in a couple large pots, doing 10gal batches in 25gal pots is a bit overkill IMO

 

I think you'll find that a quality pot that big is gonna cost you some major $$$$$$

You might want to check ebay or craigslist for old milk cans or stainless barrels (55gal) which can be had for relatively cheap, its likely you would have to put in some elbow grease to make it look purdy though

 

I have both 15 and 6 gallon versions of this pot. They are built like the proverbial tank.

Morebeer sells 15 and 26 gallon versions with welded fittings: http://morebeer.com/products/26-gallon-stainless-brew-kettle-heavy-duty.html

 

When using a stainless pot as a mash tun you will likely need to either insulate (not too hard; this is what I do) or periodically add heat from a burner (tricky) or set up a RIMS or HERMS system (don't ask me what these mean -- I do not really know, but I believe that at least one of these is for mash temperature control).