Adding handles to brew kettle.

I would consider an aluminum pot. They are sturdier and cheap on ebay.

 

Flimsy as in the weld will break, the metal near the weld will tear, or the grab handle will break?

As a side note, I build, CHEAPLY, one of these. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0013O4WO2
I still have to lift, but moving my fermenter from the back porch to inside the house to the beer fridge is now very easy. I have a plastic 6.5gal conical and it was akward to carry. Built it to be the same height as the floor of the beer fridge.

 

Add to that a 20 plate chiller from these guys. Its cheap and works real well. You won't have to move any more hot wort.

http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=+beer++wort++chiller&i=beerchillers

 

You could go shopping for some handles at the hardware store. Get some stainless hardware and some stainless fender washers (not sure if this exist, I've only seen them in galvanized) for the inside. They are just like standard washers but they are larger in diameter. This would give you a large contact surface on the inside to distribute the load...or just buy another pot. Just get one larger than you think you need.

 

can you run a hose out there?

 

Full kettles of hot wort are too heavy to carry around safely. If you have to transport - get a hand truck. Use one with pneumatic wheels or it will splash around quite a bit.

 

I used to have to move the boiling wort about 60 feet in order to reach the point where we cooled it. When we did that, we ALWAYS did it with two people, with potholders, and that is with a sturdy pot. It's a very dangerous thing, five or more gallons of boiling hot liquid. Moving it must increase the danger exponentially.

Since then we've extended the water supply to reach the brewhaus, thus avoiding having to move the boiling hot wort. This is a much better setup. I would highly recommend figuring out a way to NOT have to move hot wort.

Even moving chilled liquid, five gallons is heavy, more than that is even heavier, and as far as I know, none of us are getting any younger. My back doesn't like carrying heavy stuff anymore (and I'm in pretty good shape). We're close to having the entire brewing process in one single area, thus we won't have to move any more full buckets or carboys anymore (or at least not have to move them more than a few feet). I for one am tired of being tired after brewing, with a considerable portion of that being from carrying heavy stuff!

Sometimes you have to go out of your way for convenience.

 

In the winter I usually keep the hose in a heated area until just before chilling the wort. Then drag it out, hook it up and chill away. You can chill 6 gallons in about 7 min with the plate chiller.

 

No you don't. Gravity works fine.

 

We built a pre-chiller for the wort chiller without using a plate chiller, works great. Not that I think plate chillers are bad, in fact I may very well have one soon (when my upgrade to ten gallons is nearer completion). But with the success of this little doohickey, it's not a big rush to get a plate chiller, especially not when doing only five gallons.

link to how we designed a pre-chiller for the tap water that goes through the wort chiller

 

I 2nd everybody else who says get serious about boiling and chilling in place and don't move the wort until it is at pitching temperature. Especially if you have small children anywhere on the premises or nearby.

Give the flimsy handle pot a 2nd life as a heatable mash tun or hot liquor tank for sparge water, and upgrade your setup to be safe and easy to work with.

 

Ooh, there's an excellent video on youtube with 2 dumbasses trying to move a full mash tun and the handle breaks. They bite it, probably get burned, and lose their batch. I think the same reasoning works for what you're trying to do here. (Sorry if one of you dumbasses is reading this).

I agree that a dolley of sorts would work, but I'd push for chilling with a garden hose and a sump pump. It's cheaper than a hospital bill.

 

Yeah, you need to get out of the business of picking up hot pots. For what it's worth, professional cooks avoid this like the plague, for good reason. In our case, a simple valve, gravity and some tubing is all that is needed to move everything from the water source to the fermenting container.

 

Go with the submersible pumped ice water system...might burn up some ice on the initial cool down but, overall, it really saves water. You can justify the pump purchase as an emergency expenditure for any time you get water in the basement, etc.

 

The only handles I trust to move a full vessel are the ones on the converted kegs.