After 25 years with the same converted keggle, I splurged on a 14.5 gallon Brewmaster kettle. I’m frugal. Brewed a batch yesterday and can’t believe the improvements: comes to boil so much quicker, holds a boil with way less fire, uses far less propane as a result, much easier to do things like skim break material or make kettle additions, the valve location is perfect, volume markings are very handy, and the threaded interior on the valve has me thinking about adding a bazooka tube and switching to whole hops. I strongly recommend ditching your keggles if you’re still using them. Cheers!
Ive been stainless from day one. Wouldn t know. Started with a stainless turkey fryer, moved up to brewtech. I do remember my aluminum turkey fryer though. night and day difference. Congrats
Thanks. The old Dortmunder union keg I've been using is stainless steel, but it's pretty scuzzy. When I looked into info on cleaning, I discovered you can cause some problems. Good reason to upgrade - or embrace filth on the hot side.
Used aluminum for 6 months then bought a stainless 9 gallon kettle, installed vale and bazooka screen, big positive difference. Just replaced the propain regulator and hose and actually used propain rated tape on the threaded parts. Burns better and used less, all good.
Never a problem with whole hops. A heavy dosing of whole and pellets can cause clogging of the screen, but I will scrap back the hops and she flows fine. One does get some extra hop fine and trub in the fermenter when scraping, but never a big problem. Hops alone in large quantities can also result in hop fines in the fermenter. And no, never bagged any hops
I never had good results when bagging pellets. Maybe because I over hopped due to the expectation of less complete hop utilization.... I’m gonna try the whole hop/bazooka tube thing once my pellet supply is exhausted. Cheers!
This is a timely post. I've been brewing in converted kegs for a long time and I've been thinking of making the switch to a more formal brewpot as well. I was wondering about the efficiency of heating issue and you've cleared that up a bit for me. Thanks.
