New kettle

[Weeks75]

I’ve been home brewing extract for a few years. Took some time off and back into it again. I have a 5 gallon stainless pot that I bought with my fist kit. I am looking to upgrade to possibly a ten gallon to do full boils and eventually full grain. I was looking between
Spike brewing and their spike plus kettle
brewtech TC kettle
SS brewtech brewmaster edition
Blichmann G2 boilermaker
Looking to stick around 300 or less for pot and valve. Willing to spend some more if worth the extra coin.

 

[Nick Poggetti]

My personal opinion, I think the extra $$ for TC options on the hot side really isn't worth the extra money unless you've already invested in lots of those fittings for the cold side. I know SS Brewtech doesn't offer their older versions with the weldness NPT valves, but I had 3 10 gallon kettles by them for a while and have nothing but good things to say about them. I now have a single 20 gallon Spike Kettle with the two vertical couplers V4 and it's great.

If you're thinking about what you want now that will be usable when you get into all grain, consider which route you want to go.

If you're thinking of eventually going all grain, are you considering BIAB, Herms, RIMS, Cooler Mash Tun, etc etc etc.

If I was in your spot and had the experience I have now, I would go like this: Get myself a 15 Gallon Spike V4 with 2 couplers ($265). That way I would be able to progress with my extract brewing to all grain like you mentioned. When I was ready to go all grain, it's a minor investment in a bag and you can easily do full volume mashing while brewing in a bag. From there, you can modify the kettle however you want by adding recirculation options, a heating element for electric, and anything else you can think of.

You just need a ball valve in one coupler, and you can put a temp gauge or blank off the other coupler until it's needed at a later date.

Just my 2 cents, I'm sure other people may have different thoughts.

 

[mongoose33]

Batch size is important. You are right in aiming at 10 gallons; that will let you do 5-gallon batches with ease, and even do BIAB if you so desire.

When I upgraded to a 10-gallon kettle I bought a Spike. At minimum, I'd say a 2-port kettle, with the ports in my case horizontal. Left one for a ball valve, right one for a thermometer.

I've since added several ports to my kettle, which is shown in the pic below. I moved to electric brewing so I added a TC port on the bottom left for the element, a NPT port in the mid-point for whirlpooling and chiller return, and a TC port on the top right for my Steam Slayer unit. Originally I had only the two horizontal ports in front. I took the kettle back to spike to have them weld the new ports on.

BTW, why the two horizontal ports? I wanted to be able to easily do BIAB and having a temp probe on which the bag could potentially snag was a nonstarter for me, so I used the lower one with a stubby temp probe. Worked great.

FWIW: You can get bulkhead ports that can be added without welding if you can cut the holes. I did that with my 10-gallon setup--had a local metalshop cut the holes for me, bought the bulkhead ports from BrewHardware, and they are every bit as solid as welded.

Here's the original spike kettle I bought:

Here's the kettle after the added ports:

And FWIW, I agree with @Nick Poggetti about the TC ports. For somethings they're necessary, like the element and the Steam Slayer, but for the rest, the NPT ports are just fine.

 

[Weeks75]

My personal opinion, I think the extra $$ for TC options on the hot side really isn't worth the extra money unless you've already invested in lots of those fittings for the cold side. I know SS Brewtech doesn't offer their older versions with the weldness NPT valves, but I had 3 10 gallon kettles by them for a while and have nothing but good things to say about them. I now have a single 20 gallon Spike Kettle with the two vertical couplers V4 and it's great.

If you're thinking about what you want now that will be usable when you get into all grain, consider which route you want to go.

If you're thinking of eventually going all grain, are you considering BIAB, Herms, RIMS, Cooler Mash Tun, etc etc etc.

If I was in your spot and had the experience I have now, I would go like this: Get myself a 15 Gallon Spike V4 with 2 couplers ($265). That way I would be able to progress with my extract brewing to all grain like you mentioned. When I was ready to go all grain, it's a minor investment in a bag and you can easily do full volume mashing while brewing in a bag. From there, you can modify the kettle however you want by adding recirculation options, a heating element for electric, and anything else you can think of.

You just need a ball valve in one coupler, and you can put a temp gauge or blank off the other coupler until it's needed at a later date.

Just my 2 cents, I'm sure other people may have different thoughts.

Was planning on doing mash tun setup for my next step. Would a ten gallon be fine for five gallon all grain batches or should I go with 15 gallon. I plan on doing 5 gallon for the foreseeable future even when trying all grain. Thanks for insight on tc ports. Been leaning toward the spike but a huge chunk for the kettle at this point for me. The npt kettle with two ports is about where I’m Comfortable now. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Weeks75]

Batch size is important. You are right in aiming at 10 gallons; that will let you do 5-gallon batches with ease, and even do BIAB if you so desire.

When I upgraded to a 10-gallon kettle I bought a Spike. At minimum, I'd say a 2-port kettle, with the ports in my case horizontal. Left one for a ball valve, right one for a thermometer.

I've since added several ports to my kettle, which is shown in the pic below. I moved to electric brewing so I added a TC port on the bottom left for the element, a NPT port in the mid-point for whirlpooling and chiller return, and a TC port on the top right for my Steam Slayer unit. Originally I had only the two horizontal ports in front. I took the kettle back to spike to have them weld the new ports on.

BTW, why the two horizontal ports? I wanted to be able to easily do BIAB and having a temp probe on which the bag could potentially snag was a nonstarter for me, so I used the lower one with a stubby temp probe. Worked great.

FWIW: You can get bulkhead ports that can be added without welding if you can cut the holes. I did that with my 10-gallon setup--had a local metalshop cut the holes for me, bought the bulkhead ports from BrewHardware, and they are every bit as solid as welded.

Here's the original spike kettle I bought:

View attachment 687806


Here's the kettle after the added ports:

View attachment 687807


And FWIW, I agree with @Nick Poggetti about the TC ports. For somethings they're necessary, like the element and the Steam Slayer, but for the rest, the NPT ports are just fine.

How do you like the lower thermo port on the spike. Does it interfere with the burner and off readings.

 

[mongoose33]

How do you like the lower thermo port on the spike. Does it interfere with the burner and off readings.

It works fine. There's always a little stratification in the water temp, but it's on the order of a couple degrees.

It's short enough that it isn't close to the element. Here's a pic that shows where it is; remember, it's a 10-gallon kettle:

 

[Nick Poggetti]

Was planning on doing mash tun setup for my next step. Would a ten gallon be fine for five gallon all grain batches or should I go with 15 gallon.

If you're thinking of mashing in a cooler and using the kettle as a boil kettle only, then yeah a 10 gallon kettle will be sufficient. Keep in mind though you may need to use your existing 5 gallon pot to hold your sparge water once you heat it up to sparging temps.

 

[rwinzing]

Was planning on doing mash tun setup for my next step. Would a ten gallon be fine for five gallon all grain batches or should I go with 15 gallon. I plan on doing 5 gallon for the foreseeable future even when trying all grain. Thanks for insight on tc ports. Been leaning toward the spike but a huge chunk for the kettle at this point for me. The npt kettle with two ports is about where I’m Comfortable now. Thanks for the advice.

If you are looking at a kettle for a mash tun then I would do 15 gallons for the tun only. Gives you more room for larger beers. The boil kettle 10 gallons is all you need for 5 gallon batches. That is what I use. I have a 15 gallon mash tun and two ten gallon kettles for boil and sparge water.

 

[myndflyte]

I'd personally go for a 15 gallon kettle. I brewed 5 gallon batches with a 10 gallon pot for a long time and I always had to baby the boil when it first started to make sure I didn't get a boil over. Finally getting a 15 gallon pot made everything so much easier.

 

[Yesfan]

I agree with others on going with a 15 gallon boil kettle, even if you're just doing 5 gallon batches for now. This is especially true if you decide to try BIAB (mash/boil in one vessel) as the extra room is recommended.

I run a typical 3 vessel setup with two 15 gallon kettles for the hot liquor tank and boil, with a 10 gallon for the mash tun. I like having a bigger boil kettle vs a bigger mash tun if I have to choose between the two. For the most part, I've still had plenty of space when mashing for those 10 gallon batches as the grain bills when using a smaller tun. I have a false bottom for my 15 gallon HLT if I need to use it as a tun for the rare occasion, but I can count on one hand how many times I've used it as a mashtun for a big 10 gallon batch. For 95% of my brewing 5/10 gallon batches, a 10 gallon tun has be more than enough for my needs.

Of course, if you can budget for a bigger tun when that times comes, there's nothing wrong with that either.