My houseware pots are too small so I need a real brew pot. I don't mind spending a decent amount of money, but am not sure if I need to or not. I'm still doing extract brewing since I'm still new, only three brews in so far, but know I would like:

1. A pot that has some visual indicator of the amount of gallons in the pot
2. An easy way to pour or drain the wort into my primary
3. Temperature reading. I have a 12" lab thermometer that I've been using fine, so I guess it's optional but would be nice to have one set on the pot.

I see some of these pots with ball valves which I'm guessing is exactly for draining the pot? Anyhow, some day I plan to progress to all grain, but I don't plan that for some time, want to get all these basics downpacked first. Any advice on what type of pot to get? All my batches will be 5 gallons primarily with nothing larger than 6 gallon batches. Sorry to have to ask this and thanks to anyone that can lend some direction.

It has the quart amounts pressed into the metal so you can see the numbers from inside and out. No special way to transfer, I pour the wort into the carboy with a large funnel and take a temp with a standard cooking thermometer. Works great for extract and from what I'm told 30qt is large enough for all grain in the future.

Ideally you want to make 6 gallon batches if you want to end up with 5. You'll lose half a gallon in the kettle by leaving the gunk behind in the bottom, and you'll lose half a gallon kegging/bottling by leaving the yeast cake behind. So to end up w/5 gal you should make a 6 gal batch.

If your boiloff rate is 1.5gal/hr, and you do a 6 gal batch, you'll need 7.5 gal in the kettle to start, or exactly 30quarts. This obviously leaves you no room to boil. Even if you only boiled off 1gal/hr you're cutting it too close, it will boil over every time. What if you do a 90 min boil? You're gonna need 8 gallons or so in the pot.

So for these reasons I'm always recommending 10gal (40q) kettles to anyone doing 5 gal batches.

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