Stainless vs aluminum kettles

Blancaster · Post by **Blancaster** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:11 pm

What's to vote? I read some say stainless period... Others say aluminum is fine. What does everyone here think?

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SkyBrew · Post by **SkyBrew** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:02 pm

Stainless is better but more expensive, aluminum is cheap and flimsy

KennyPurcell · Post by **KennyPurcell** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:06 pm

My aluminum pot is about 1/4" thick. It's not at all flimsy.

Blancaster · Post by **Blancaster** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:58 pm

Does aluminum affect the beer at all? Or is it no different than stainless in that aspect?

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SkyBrew · Post by **SkyBrew** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 7:17 am

According to John Palmer's How to Brew bleach can cause corrosion of aluminum because it removes the protective layer of oxides and can result in a metallic taste.

http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixB.html

Cleaning Stainless Steel and Aluminum
For general cleaning, mild detergents or percarbonate-based cleaners are best for steel and aluminum. Bleach should be avoided because the high pH of a bleach solution can cause corrosion of aluminum and to a lessor degree of stainless steel. Do not clean aluminum shiny bright or use bleach to clean an aluminum brewpot because this removes the protective oxides and can result in a metallic taste. This taste-detectable level of aluminum is not hazardous. There is more aluminum in a common antacid tablet than would be present in a batch of beer made in an aluminum pot.

As with aluminum, the corrosion inhibitor in stainless steel is the passive oxide layer that protects the surface. The 300-series alloys (a.k.a. 18-8 alloys) commonly used in the brewing industry are very corrosion-resistant to most chemicals. Unfortunately, chlorine is one of the few chemicals to which these steels are not resistant. The chlorine in bleach acts to destabilize the passive oxide layer on steel, creating corrosion pits. This type of attack is accelerated by localization and is generally known as crevice or pitting corrosion.

msjulian · Post by **msjulian** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 7:30 am

My opion (for what it's worth) is that they both make good beer. There are trade offs with both as already posted. Cost, weight, lifespan and corrosion are all things to factor in. The big kettles we have at church are aluminum and are nice and thick. Not sure how old they are but they seem to be holding up. They don't have a Tri-clad bottom and you have to be careful when heating up to keep from scorching. There is no doubt that stainless is more durable and less subseptale to corrosion. Bottom line in my book, get what your budget will allow. If you can afford SS get it. You will have a kettle you grand children will use. The one thing I would would look for is a tri-clad bottom. No guarantee you still won't scorch if you get in a hurry (like all impatient brewers do when trying to up to boil) but it should help reduce the possibility.

On a side note there is some research that was done on a connection between cooking with aluminum pots and Alzheimer's...

KennyPurcell · Post by **KennyPurcell** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:23 pm

It is known that aluminum toxicity will cause confusion, but no one gets aluminum poisoning from cooking with an aluminum pot. The only case that they think there may be a direct connection between chronic aluminum toxicity and Alzheimer's involved a guy that breathed aluminum dust at work everyday.
The most dangerous thing in homebrew is a highly poisonous molecule called alcohol.

psfred · Post by **psfred** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:51 pm

Aluminum can cause metallic flavors and make the beer gray if it stays in contact too long, but just using an aluminum pot as a boiler is fine IF you do not scrub it clean with scotchbrite or stainless/copper scrub pads. If you use plastic scrubbies it will work great.

Don't leave carbonated beer in contact with aluminum, it will corrode the aluminum and ruin the beer. Those aluminum "bottles" that were popular a couple years ago were plastic coated, not bare aluminum.

Stainless is better, but significantly more expensive for a heavy duty pot.

Peter

Blancaster · Post by **Blancaster** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:14 pm

After looking at lots of kettles of all types I settled on this one (thanks to Michael Julian for bringing this one to my attention.). http://www.ssbrewtech.com/collections/k ... -15-gallon
Hopefully I should have no problems with BIAB with this one.

SkyBrew · Post by **SkyBrew** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:34 am

Woa that's a sweet pot!

I keep looking at these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-100-QT-Quar ... 2ec8bb22b0

mikeroth · Post by **mikeroth** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 10:16 am

If you brew outside in cool weather S/S will retain heat longer making it easier to maintain mash temperature.

Don · Post by **Don** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 5:17 pm

Stainless seems to fit my brewing:

SkyBrew · Post by **SkyBrew** » Tue Dec 09, 2014 9:09 pm

I might have a slight case of kettle envy

Don · Post by **Don** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 2:38 pm

Got my custom mash screen today.
Can't wait to try it out.
Now to make my pickup tube and there will be some Stout brewing.

KennyPurcell · Post by **KennyPurcell** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 3:04 pm

That's pretty, so pretty

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