I am currently in the midst of building a microbrewery. What a enormous project! I have been shopping for months online, searching for used tanks and kettle to build this within my meager budget. When I finally found a large kettle, I just thought I would get a gas burner. Then I emailed Kal at
'The Electric Brewery' in Canada to ask about heating element inserts. He said for my volume, 500+ liters, the only way to go is to power a steam jacketed kettle with a steam generator. Here's a photo of the steam jacketed kettle I found, used in Germany.
This would work perfectly for me. It has a 550 liter capacity, can tip with a hand crank, a valve in the bottom, and a operating pressure of 1 bar steam. I could bring 550 liters liquid to a boil in 30 minutes. Cost: 1460 euro, 13360 Swedish Crowns or $2000. Less than one fifth of what it sold for new.
Then I needed to find a steam generator (last week I had never heard of it, now I needed one) so after endless Google searches I found a small company in Denmark that could sell me a small steam generator. Cost: 6600 euro, 60,000 sek or $9000. I must say, I was shocked at the price. I'm sure it's absolutely worth it and that's what they go for but it wasn't in my budget. Here's a photo of the Maxi 60 steam generator.
Then I noticed the name...'Ghidini' and thought, doesn't that sound Italian so I went on Google Italy and after some searching and translation, I found a site for
Ghidini and after numerous emails was able to negotiate a price for 2500 euro, 22,800 sek or $3500. Now suddenly it was within my range, with a huge saving from my first estimate!
