Kettle

[jason.loxton]

Just want to point out that for the same price as upgrading to a fancy kettle you can get a single wall stainless kettle AND everything you need to go electric (element, dial controller, element adapter). Just saying...

Jason

[OntarioBeerkegs]

Pots come in all shapes and sizes. And level of quality.

As a device they all work the same. They hold liquid and can put heat under them to make them boil.

After that it is a all preference on quality and features.

Most folks are fine with the thin 200 series economy pot. Lids are junk and the pots are only .8 mm thick but will make fine beer. Just expect them to be dented up after a year or two of use.

Some prefer something more robust like a heavy duty. These are fine as well. Most heavy duties in what folks consider the affordable range are 200 stainless series like the Tall Boy Kettles.

Then you get into the 304 series pots like Brewtech and Obkettles, Blichmann etc. Folks buying these pots for whatever reasons want a piece of equipment that is built with quality in mind. They are willing to trade some dollars for something that will last an entire brewing career.

Long story short the pot will not make better beer, that is process. But you do get what you pay for.

We have a large selection of stocked pots to fit any budget and needed features. Many of them have videos you can watch from a desktop device right in the ads if want a better look or peek at what the feature ranges are. Like this one:
http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/8_Gallon ... kettle.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cheers
Patrick

[ivorm]

Just want to point out that for the same price as upgrading to a fancy kettle you can get a single wall stainless kettle AND everything you need to go electric (element, dial controller, element adapter). Just saying...

Jason

I wish I could go electric, my panel and garage are on opposite sides of the house though.

[ivorm]

So I was hoping to buy one kettle that I could grow into. By the sounds of things I should be looking at a 19/20 gallon kettle. Is a kettle this big too big for say a 5 gallon extract brew?

I've made 5 gal batches in mine (boil vol of say 29-30l)...only caution is make sure you put your thermometer low enuf to still get a reading once your wort has boiled down to target batch size...so you know when it's cooled off enuf for pitching yeast

Yeah thats one thing I noticed about the 20 gal OBKettle, the thermometer hole is too high off the bottom of the kettle. The say in the video the hole is 158 mm above the bottom and the kettle is 450mm wide, I think that put the thermometer at about the 25 litre (6.6 gal) mark.

[Jimmy]

I really which I could find the study that's supposed to be out there concerning gas flames on SS pots and reductones. Authors write these books but fail to include references. It's in Randy Mosher's new book. I'm trying to find a way of contacting him for a link to the research. He doesn't seem to be on social media. Is he on one of the American forums? It may or may not be important. If you read Randy's mastering home brew book, there are several references to this, and he really seems to think it is an issue.

You're quick to take one study/book/article for granted, but quickly dismiss another.

How about you try brewing the same beer and do a side-by-side taste test to see if you can detect any off flavors due to pot construction, instead of making the assumption that the author was correct. Lab results showing a difference don't necessarily equate to:

a) a difference that can be detected by taste, or;
b) if there is a detectable difference in taste, that it is a negative taste when it comes to overall flavor of the beer

[GuingesRock]

One brewer doing that and his subjective assessment isn't worth much. If the work has been done, then why repeat? We'll see if he gets back to me with more details. If so, then I'll post for opinions.

Some things make sense to me and others don't. I do try to explain why they do and why they don't make sense to me.

You are right to question this.

[OntarioBeerkegs]

There's also this alternative:
http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/8_Gallon ... ldless.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GuingesRock]

Randy Mosher replied to my email (Nice Guy!) Thanks Randy!!!!

Looks like he did a lot of work digging up stuff for us.

Hi Mark,

I have only limited access to scientific papers, but there are a couple attached, below. Also, here's a page from an old standby text, Hough, Briggs and Stevens:

https://books.google.com/books?id=mROkA ... on&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


This pretty clearly states that excessive kettle caramelization is a bad thing. This is the most scientifically complex thing in brewing, after yeast.


Here's a general overview paper that gives some background and points out the incredible complexity of the subject:


http://depa.fquim.unam.mx/amyd/archiver ... _25527.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Here's another very detailed paper:

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.ph ... 2757/10103" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They talk about Maillard in 4.5.


I've also attached Greg Casey's fabulous fishbone diagram on wort oxidation. I've talked a lot to various people in the industry, including those at Siebel, and this is a pretty well agreed-upon point in brewing. If you look at the modern alternatives to traditional wort boiling, you see external calandria and systems like Steinecker's Merlin, that use gentle heat and a very large surface area to heat the wort and purge it of DMS and other undesirable volatiles.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,


-Randy

[mcgster]

I don't see anything on the pot construction, unless i missed it?

[GuingesRock]

I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. Just posted what he wrote.

[gm-]

Same here, no mention of the kettle construction

[GuingesRock]

Were you able to open the links? I can only get the first link. Lots of interesting stuff in there.

Here's my message to him:

Hello Randy, Can you help please? In your new excellent book you talk about gas flames on SS pots forming hot spots. We are having a discussion on our brewing forum (The Brewnosers) about the hot spots and reductones. Would you be able to direct me to the source of that research please? it would be a huge help.

Thank you very much

Mark

I think I was specific enough in my request, although he may have misinterpreted the question I was trying to ask. I'll send another message.

[Jimmy]

Were you able to open the links? I can only get the first link. Lots of interesting stuff in there.

Here's my message to him:

Hello Randy, Can you help please? In your new excellent book you talk about gas flames on SS pots forming hot spots. We are having a discussion on our brewing forum (The Brewnosers) about the hot spots and reductones. Would you be able to direct me to the source of that research please? it would be a huge help.

Thank you very much

Mark

I think I was specific enough in my request, although he may have misinterpreted the question I was trying to ask. I'll send another message.

Or he's just making his own connection between hot spots, pot construction and a noticeable negative effect on the final product. I think the true test would be a side-by-side...

I bet lots of brewers used standard pots and propane burners in the Big Spruce comp, and did just fine. Just sayin

[jacinthebox]

I have El cheapo pots...Eric has the next step up.
If I spent all my money on pots I'd have none left for beer supplies. Lol

[GuingesRock]

I'm a bit of a persistent bugger!

Hello Randy, Thank you very much for your kind response! There's a mass of interesting information there but we can't find anything that points to a gas flame on a Stainless steel pot with a thin SS base and no tri-clad base, causing reductones. I am attaching a scan of the relevant page in your book “Mastering Homebrew” from page # 148.

I think there’s another reference to this somewhere in the book also.

I don’t think this has appeared in the mainstream homebrewing books before. We have very many brewers in the club who brew this way. We were looking for the science behind this specific matter so people can consider if there might be enough evidence to modify their brewing to take account of this.

I was wondering if you might recall where to lay your hands on this again, or point us in a direction to research this specific matter.

Thanks for all of your help with this.

Regards to a great brewer and author!

Cheers.

Mark

Reductones from Randy Mosher's book.pdf

[GuingesRock]

What a prompt and awesome response from Randy Mosher. Thanks Randy

Hi Mark,

Well, of course homebrewing problems don't rise to the level where they are fundable for expensive scientific experiments. But I can tell you the science says brewers should be worried about steam jackets injecting too-high heat into their boiling beer, so direct fire should be far beyond that in terms of caramelizing the wort.

As I think I say in the book, if you can see the pattern of your burner on your kettle inside once it's emptied, that's evidence of extreme heat. Having done some welding, I can tell you that stainless is an extremely poor conductor of heat, and that causes problems for welders and brewers in different ways.

It readily passes the heat through the thin metal, but fails to transmit it laterally and spread out the heat energy, keeping it concentrated in the area of the flame, leading to extremely hot spots and the ills that they can produce. The deposits you can see are mainly two things: melanoidins (strongly reductone as the articles say), and minerals that have been boiled out of solution by what we could call "steam cavitation" for lack of a better term. So, it doesn't take a scientific paper to see that this is not a good thing.

The melanoidin/reductone issue WRT staling seems by the papers to be strongest in paler beers, even when the color gains might not be all that obvious. This may just be because that's what's been most studied, or maybe because oxidation in dark beers is not so obvious, or because the dark melanoidins in dark beer have a complicated relationship with oxidized flavors.

I hope that's helpful. Not every homebrewing topic has a paper, so you sometimes have to triangulate to a commonsense perspective and take the best reasonable steps you can to make the best beer. As small-scale brewers, we homebrewers have enough trouble with oxidation, so in my view, taking steps to reduce the heat density as applied to wort in the boil is pretty reasonable and well supported by the facts.

Hope that's good enough for you. If you find a paper out there, let me know about it.


--Randy

[mcgster]

That is what i was expecting.

So if a brewer were conscientious about his/her heat, and boiled at a lower heat, it really should not be an issue. The price jump from 80$ to 300$ in some cases, likely won't impact the beer if they pay attention to how rigorous the boil is.

[mthibodeau]

or as somebody else suggested earlier, if you can get your hands on a scrap steel plate, just put on on the burner first then your kettle on top of that

[Jayme]

I think the steel plate may be the better option. You may not be able to get the wort hot enough to sustain a boil without creating hot spots. Hard to say for sure (hard to test also...) but that would be my guess.

[GuingesRock]

or as somebody else suggested earlier, if you can get your hands on a scrap steel plate, just put on on the burner first then your kettle on top of that

I think that might actually increase efficiency of heating the wort too (and use less fuel) by absorbing the heat from the flame and spreading it over the whole base of the pot. Providing both the bottom of the pot and the steel plate are flat and there is good contact all over. The weight of the wort would probably push a thin steel pot bottom down against the steel plate.

[mcgster]

I wouldn't recommend using a scrap plate for the opposite reason.

Since the conduction of SS is VERY poor having the pot set onto of a plate of scrap steel will decrease your efficiency greatly, while it will decrease the likelihood of heat spots, the mechanism is through a huge drop in efficiency.

The scrap plate will reduce the formation of hot spots though, so if you aren't concerned with efficiency this wouldn't be a bad way to go.

[GuingesRock]

I wouldn't recommend using a scrap plate for the opposite reason.

Since the conduction of SS is VERY poor having the pot set onto of a plate of scrap steel will decrease your efficiency greatly, while it will decrease the likelihood of heat spots, the mechanism is through a huge drop in efficiency.

The scrap plate will reduce the formation of hot spots though, so if you aren't concerned with efficiency this wouldn't be a bad way to go.

What do you want to bet on this Mark?

We need a pot and a plate and a burner. Keep the burner running at the same heat. Boil 2 gallons in the pot and measure how long it takes to boil and then put plate under pot and repeat.

[mcgster]

Haha that wouldn't be a wise bet on your part Mark, no need to test something as well studied as heat transfer! No possible way that adding a scrap piece of metal between the burner and pot would INCREASE your efficiency.

[GuingesRock]

Haha that wouldn't be a wise bet on your part Mark, no need to test something as well studied as heat transfer! No possible way that adding a scrap piece of metal between the burner and pot would INCREASE your efficiency.

Them's fighting words! I was good at physics too.

Anyone wanting to lay bets now's your chance.

[mcgster]

I'm all ears if you would like to explain how the efficiency of heat transfer is improved by adding a second discontinuous layer of metal between the heat source and sink. A tri-clad base doesn't even improve your efficiency, it decreases it, but improves your heat distribution.