60 Gal. Jacketed Steam Kettle (help much appreciated)

[bndooley]

My brother and I are starting a brewpub. We've been thinking about building our brewhouse from used and fabricated equip. The brewhouse size is going to be small, we're aiming at somewhere between 2-5Bls.

At the junkyard today, I stumbled upon an old 60 gallon jacketed steam kettle. As far as I can tell, it was used on board a navy vessel (we live close to a base). They want $75 dollars for it. The parts look to be in good working order, but I haven't had the opportunity to pressure test it. As far as I can tell, it's aluminum (heavily oxidized, but intact), although I didn't have a magnet with me, and the guy at the yard didn't seem to know (strange, but true)

Has anyone had any experience with these? Seems like a perfect boil kettle. Is this too good to be true, or a piece of junk that's going to sit in my yard for the rest of my life. Any advice, help, etc. would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Ben

[damoller]

My brother and I are starting a brewpub. We've been thinking about building our brewhouse from used and fabricated equip. The brewhouse size is going to be small, we're aiming at somewhere between 2-5Bls.

At the junkyard today, I stumbled upon an old 60 gallon jacketed steam kettle. As far as I can tell, it was used on board a navy vessel (we live close to a base). They want $75 dollars for it. The parts look to be in good working order, but I haven't had the opportunity to pressure test it. As far as I can tell, it's aluminum (heavily oxidized, but intact), although I didn't have a magnet with me, and the guy at the yard didn't seem to know (strange, but true)

Has anyone had any experience with these? Seems like a perfect boil kettle. Is this too good to be true, or a piece of junk that's going to sit in my yard for the rest of my life. Any advice, help, etc. would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Ben

The 60 gallons would only be good enough to boil 1 to 1.5 gallon batches! Does it have an outlet at the bottom, can it be set up to whirlpool or is the bottom invert dome? You would need to pressure test it. It should be stainless, If it is aluminum than it may have pits or weak spots in the shell if not taken care of properly, even though I have never seen an aluminum one myself!

[Sir Brewsalot]

Did you mean 1.0-1.5 BARREL batches?

[bndooley]

I've not been able to find any reference to aluminum kettles on line, so I'm going to assume it's stainless (althought visual inspection sure wouldn't indicate that...).

Point taken about brew size. We're talking about a very small operation, probably about thirty-forty seats and maybe a yearly average of 1.2 to 1.5 turns a day. We're calculating somewhere around 500 barrels for the first year, and maybe 700 by the end of the second. The population of our area is small and spread quite thin.

If not good for a boil kettle, how about a mash/lauter tun? Can anyone give me any insight into grainbill volume by weight? I'm under the impression that you can get away with a kettle about 2/3 the size of your intended output. Is that a fair estimate?

[Larry Horwitz]

500 bbls out of a 1.5 bbl kettle? Forget it. never happen. You'd be lucky to do that with a 7bbl system.

thats 333 brews per year...once a day 7 days a week or 2 times a day 4 times per week. You wouldn't have time to sleep.

Remember, you have to do a ton more than just brew it. Also, what is the point of 2/3 your intended size....are you planning on using extract? 'cause its darn expensive.

[Diamond Knot]

Diamond Knot did 1,250 Bbls last year out of our 7 Bbl B1 Facility.

[Larry Horwitz]

how many guys, how many days? Dude, that is a ton of beer from a very small brewery.

[Diamond Knot]

It's on state record, Du.
We have a Master Brewer and a Sales/Delivery Rep. We also move most of it inside the Alehouse. B1 has 2 conical primaries and 3 Grundy clarifiers. We use Klarospane finings and keg our products.

It'ld blow you away, Larry. It all happens in a 300ish sq-ft space. You can't even swing a cat in there.

[Larry Horwitz]

I'm impressed! That is kicking ass and taking names!

[Diamond Knot]

Thanks, Larry...........we called it the "march or die" concept. The plan had little room for error.

BTW - I was off in my numbers...........it was 1,150 Bbls, not 1,250. I think, in my humble opinion, that is still a lot for such a small facility.

[beertje46]

brewboyky of Cumberland Brews has a two bbl. system with four 2 bbl. Uni's and eight 2 bbl. servers. CB brewed aprox. 377 bbl. last year in a space you can't even pick-up a cat let alone swing one. The beers are all unfiltered and of very high qualtity. It can be done and done well!

[damoller]

all on premise sales at one job I had but thank GOD it didnt last because I had a miserable part time helper but did most myself. Really 2 batches per week per brewer or helper(good helper)!

[beertje46]

I brewed/filtered 600 bbl. in December 2005 on a 30 bbl. system, by myself. I did have help milling half of the grist, the other half by myself. My best of the bunch was six batches back to back for a forty hour brew "day".

[Josef]

I worked at a place that supposedly did 1400 BBL/year on a 7 BBL system. It was not fun!

[bndooley]

So, it can be done, but it doesn't sound like I'd want to do it. You guys are hosses, as we say here in the South.

But to the question, what's an acceptable ratio of mash-tun/boil kettle volume?

Any ideas on this would be a great help.

Thanks.

Ben