While it's been nice to come back to brewing as simply as possible, I will admit some better functionality would be nice, at least with my BK. Right now it's just one of my old restaurant's stockpots. Great make, but simply a vessel. I have to clip a thermometer to the side, hand-whirlpool, hand-raise and lower the IC/stir the wort to cool, auto-siphon wort to the FV.
I looked into Spike, but a new vessel with 3 ports would be $330 (their standard 10-gallon is only $260. Even though the standard has two ports and would require only the addition of a 3rd port for WP, they're not setup for this easily and so it would have to be priced and made as a custom kettle, each port and fittings costing individually). Probably not worth it by the time I get done paying a good TIG welder to do proper welds, and buy all the fittings (with fittings, that same Spike is $512), I might as well buy a dedicated BK. But querying for thoughts.
Having a whirlpool is key. Spike's quality is extremely good and I love their pickup solutions. But tough to swallow $512 for one vessel, as indeed generally Spike is considerably out of my price range anymore (I had a 3V 20 gallon system back in 2017 or so. I think all in I was under $1000 at that time, and that was for a 20 gallon, not the 10 I'm using now). Looking for a way to possibly make it work starting with a good, but blank canvas of a tri-ply stockpot.
I looked into Spike, but a new vessel with 3 ports would be $330 (their standard 10-gallon is only $260. Even though the standard has two ports and would require only the addition of a 3rd port for WP, they're not setup for this easily and so it would have to be priced and made as a custom kettle, each port and fittings costing individually). Probably not worth it by the time I get done paying a good TIG welder to do proper welds, and buy all the fittings (with fittings, that same Spike is $512), I might as well buy a dedicated BK. But querying for thoughts.
Having a whirlpool is key. Spike's quality is extremely good and I love their pickup solutions. But tough to swallow $512 for one vessel, as indeed generally Spike is considerably out of my price range anymore (I had a 3V 20 gallon system back in 2017 or so. I think all in I was under $1000 at that time, and that was for a 20 gallon, not the 10 I'm using now). Looking for a way to possibly make it work starting with a good, but blank canvas of a tri-ply stockpot.