Mastering Brewery Equipment Selection

Choosing the right brew kettle means finding one that can serve all your needs, even if your tastes and interests change. You’ll need something durable enough to last as long as you are passionate about brewing.

Brew Kettle Options

There are many brew kettles on the market, the choices for styles, accessories, and price are never-ending. You will need to figure out what bells and whistles you need, want, and can do without when choosing your brew kettle. Here are a few features that might interest you and that you will need to take into consideration, prior to making a decision.

Metal
Brew kettles are made of metal. This makes them durable and sanitary. However, there are different types of metals from which your kettle can be made.

Stainless steel has long been the standard for food preparation and service. It is relatively lightweight, and is easy to clean and sanitize. It is bolted into place, so it won’t move or shift and cause damage or get damaged.

Aluminum
Aluminum is another common material used in manufacturing brew kettles. It has its strengths, such as being lightweight and its ability to conduct heat better than stainless steel. It is also less expensive. However, it has cons as well. For instance, the color of aluminum kettles will fade or discolor. It does not react well with certain chemicals, which can damage the kettle. In fact, in some cases aluminum can slough off into the brew and mix in with the product.

To prevent this, you can pre-boil some water in the kettle before using it. This will release aluminum oxide, which protects the metal from oxygen. This is good because oxygen can react poorly with aluminum. This process also helps to protect the wort from leaching aluminum.

To get the best of both aluminum and stainless steel, you could go with a tri-clad bottom brew kettle. There are three layers of metal used. Steel makes up the outer and inner layers, with aluminum in between. This provides all of the benefits of improved conductivity and durability, but without reactions and oxidation.

Size of Brew Kettle
Size does matter when it comes to brew kettles. Buying a massive kettle when you only want to brew small batches is a waste of money and space. You also need to make sure that you have enough room in your kettle for what you want to do. You’;ll want to leave enough room to prevent your kettle from overflowing when it boils. Determine what your needs are, and how much you will brew at a time, and go from there.

Extract Brewing 5-Gallon Batch: For this amount of brewing, an 8 gallon kettle will work just fine. It will give you enough space so that it won’t boil over, plus it will not take up an entire room in your home.

All Grain Brewing 5-Gallon Batch: All-grain brewing needs more space than extract brewing, so you will need a bit of a larger kettle. A 10-gallon kettle will do the trick. Wort from all-grain brewing is foamy, so this will provide the space you need. Plus, it is not too big if you decide to do a 5-gallon batch of extract.

Beer in a Bag 5-Gallon: For beer in a bag method, you will need something bigger. You will be boiling up your grains, but also extra water to cover everything. You will definitely need a 15-gallon kettle for this type of brewing.

The key is to make sure that you have enough kettle for the type of brewing you plan on doing. You can also make smaller batches in larger kettles, but you can’t brew larger batches in smaller kettles. Make your choice based on the maximum size that you think you’ll need down the road.

Markings
Let’s face it: nobody likes to do math when they don’t have to. Why would you want to perform equations in your head when you just want to brew some beer? You need a kettle that has volume markings etched right on the metal. If you want quarts, then find a kettle with those measurements, keeping in mind that most will have liters and gallons.

Upgrade Features

There are a few other features that may come in handy, but may not be considered an essential. These add-ons provide extra convenience, but you may decide that you do not want to pay the price for them.

Thermometers
You can’t do a proper boil without tracking the temperature of the wort. You can use your own thermometers, but it’s much simpler if there is one built into the kettle. A thermometer is especially useful if you use a kettle to brew hot liquor. It makes it easier to track the temperature when you heat the sparge water.

Ball Valves
Drawing off hot wort with a syphon is something homebrewers have been doing for a long time. However, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. A ball valve will remove wort faster and with little effort on your part. Hot wort in a kettle is not exactly easy to move, and with a ball valve you won’t have to. There are a couple of different types of ball valves, however. A ball valve has either a welded or weldless fitting. Weldless fittings have been known to leak, since they use gaskets, which can fail over time. Welded ball valves do not leak, but they cannot be replaced if they are damaged. If a weldless ball valve is damaged or isn’t working properly, you will have to replace the entire kettle to fix the problem.

Dip Tubes
Dip Tubes are also called pickup tubes. They help you maximize the amount of wort you are able to pull from the vat while minimizing the amount of sludge left in the bottom of the kettle. Some people use a siphon for this, but with a dip tube you do not have to tip the kettle or move it around to get everything.

People who use a stir paddle while brewing probably want a dip tube that is installed on the side of the kettle. This helps to siphon off wort while leaving residue. When you are paddling your wort, the extra hops will spin to the middle of the whirlpool, so you can remove the wort swirling around the sides.

Higher-end brew kettles often have screens and false bottoms to help filter out residue. With these kettles, you probably want a tube that’s at the bottom. That way it will remove only the filtered wort and not the stuff leftover above.

No matter what, some residue will also slip through. To help prevent this, you can use a hop spider, which will act as an extra filter to keep everything clean.

Gloves
If you enjoy using a flame to heat your kettle, that’s completely fine. However, you probably want to keep things safe. Using gloves that are resistant to heat will help keep you from burning. Electric burner kettles often come with the option to be made with a silicone coating. This will make sure that the halde and the exterior are cool enough for you to move the kettle around and manipulate it if need be.

Induction Kettles
Induction kettles are very popular. The heat is much easier to control and track than fire kettles, and they heat up much faster. This means that your wort will get hot quickly, and you can keep the temperature at a consistent level throughout the process. It removes a lot of extra work that is no longer necessary with today’s technology. This is especially useful for people who make big batches. Being able to control the temperature makes the heating more even and consistent.

Homebrew Luxuries

There are some options that come with only the die-hards and those who have the disposable income to afford them. Brew kettles with these extras are the top of the line.

Trub Dam
The trub is all of the leftover proteins, hops and sugars that are left after you drain your wort. You do not want any trub to get into the syphoned off wort, so you need to do whatever you can to prevent contamination. A trub dam will block trub from getting into your fermentor. It’s a simple piece of metal that gets welded near the valve, but it provides an essential service.

Sight Gauges
Sight gauges provide an extremely accurate representation of the volume of the kettle. You can see from the outside of the kettle, which makes it simple to see where things are at. Some kettles may also have sight glass, allowing you to see right inside. Kettles with gauges usually also have thermometers, so you can have all the information you need at one glance.