Burco Boiler as brew kettle

kenmac

I'm getting more and more into extract brewing and reckon its time to move on from the large pot on the stove and source a brew kettle for my self.
I have been offered a 30 litre Burco boiler, in working condition. would I need to make any modifications to use it as a brew kettle?

BeerNut

I'm not familiar with the machine, but you may need some sort of strainer to keep the hop gunk out of your fermenter, if there isn't one already.

kenmac

There doesn't seem to be.... I'll gunter something up from a sieve or such.. Thanks. K

JerryHispano

I only briefly looked into using one of them ages ago. You may need to alter a thermostat or cutoff etc.

oblivious

JerryHispano wrote: »

. You may need to alter a thermostat or cutoff etc.

Both bother they can be useless

sharingan

I have a Buffalo Boiler (40L) that I use for Brew in a Bag and the odd extract brew.

The Burco unit should do you fine for extract brewing of standard size batches, depending on its capacity. The largest burcos top out at 30L so they are not as suitable for Brew in a Bag.

The thermostatic cut off is annoying, but less of an issue for an extract brewer (your boils wont be as long I suspect).

Another concern is that the element is either on or off, so you need to be very careful when you are adding extract in to dissolve. I would recommend warming some of the water, switching it off, and then adding your extract, to prevent toffee accidents.

kenmac

]

Thanks for that....hadn't thought of it!!

sharingan

You only need to make he mistake once. Trust me.

Managed to salvage the beer by draining the resulting mess into an FV, and spending an hour scrubbing the resultant burnt toffee LME off of the element, then adding in the *fully dissolved* liquid back into the kettle.