My Soup Pot, is bigger than your Soup Pot. I got this thing for free

My brother came upon this yesterday and he called me. I got it for free. Free!!!☺ It is a commercial cooker, probably for soup or pastries. It had a steam line that heats the food without burning it. It holds about 15 gallons of liquid. When you want to pour it out you turn the crank and it moves very smoothly. I may never use the steam heating function, but I'm going to use this for something, probably soap making. But if I have 200 people over for soup, it may be used for that. It's unfortunate that it's here in Canada. I could really use this thing in the Philippines, where all of the ingredients for soap making are so much cheaper and labor is $7 a day. But I'll figure something out.

Do any of you have experience using something like this? I can see that it would be very easy to convert it from steam to hot water, which would be safer. The whole thing is made for a wet environment and there's nothing electrical. If I manage to find other things that would make sense for me to take to the Philippines, I may pack them all together and ship. I wouldn't need any heat source there, because I had good luck with just heating my oils in the sun and then using heat from the lye to get the temperature right. I suppose I could put this in full sun, with oil heating and then draw a shade for the mixing process and pouring.

Soap is a very clean product. I made it in our cooking vessels, and it just meant we didn't need to use soap for cleanup. So, I think I would still use this for big batches of soup when I hire a work crew. Soup and soap, pretty easy to mix those up, but taste would tell you right away, unless my mom made the soup.

It might also be useful when I want to make banana paper.

What would you cook or mix it in a pot this size?

Nice.

I would do the first ferment of wine it it.

I might evaporate seawater into salt with it.

I might make a lot of chicken broth.

I might use it to mix up the deer, pork, and seasonings for  sausage.

That is probably everything i do that needs volume.

Dyeing fabric and washing fleece. I'm sure that anyone processing natural fibers needs one of these things. And where there's one there's more.

My brother wheedled this one out of the guy for free, but he runs a commercial kitchen outfit, so I'm going to try to make him a deal on all of his stainless stuff. A scrap dealer would call this dirty stainless, because it's not pure stainless steel. It's going to be worth somewhere around $0.25 a pound which is pretty cheap compared to the price of good cookware.

I don't really need mine for at least one year, since I'm just starting my land search in the Philippines, where I will make soap and feed large work crews. Let me think. Do I know of anyone who lives nearby and processes natural fibers? They could use this until I find them one of their own for almost nothing. There must be someone.☺

Cook apples for applesauce... I have a very large pot that I can't actually lift when it's completely full of cooked apples. I move them to the sauce maker in batches with a smaller pan.

Your pot seems like it would work well for that too. Great find!

I have one that size or maybe even bigger, but it doesn't tip and runs on bottled gas. I use it for boiling potatoes for chicken feed, and boiling water for plucking poultry.

Skandi Rogers wrote:I have one that size or maybe even bigger, but it doesn't tip and runs on bottled gas. I use it for boiling potatoes for chicken feed, and boiling water for plucking poultry.

How do you empty it without getting scalded? If you're not making soup with those chicken feathers, I still claim the biggest soup pot :-)

The biggest free soup pot.

I could see it being very handy if you're trying to process a whole moose into sausage. Or blanching large amounts of vegetables for the freezer.

Doing laundry by hand. Leave it in the sun until the water heats up, then threaten the kids with starvation if they don't keep the wooden paddle moving. Then hang some of the clothing on it.

It kind of looks like a cement mixer, but with none of those functions.

I honestly thought I was going to click through and find out that you had scored one of those old round cast iron cauldrons that we always used to see in those mid-20th-century racist cartoons and comic books where third world peoples with bones in their noses were in the process of boiling up some missionaries or an intrepid colonialist explorer in a safari hat.

Here's what is most likely, if I do take it to the Philippines.

I would use stove paint to blacken the exterior but leave it really clean for at least one inch around the opening. This would allow either water or oil to be heated in the sun.
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When I'm making soap, the oil would be left until it reaches the right temperature, then a big immersion mixer, probably made with an electric drill and some sort of drywall attachment, would mix it quickly. I have to get some of the largest molds, since there's a time limit when you're pouring soap. And I'd make sure to have at least two helpers, so that they could place the molds and to do all the fine-tuning with them before it starts to set. We might start with only 5 gallons, which is still a lot of soap.
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Solar heater for laundry and bathing water. Experience has shown me that in my tropical location, a vessel of water like this will be pretty hot by early afternoon, provided the spout is completely covered to prevent evaporative cooling. Even the framework would be painted flat black, because heat migrates easily along metal. I've already done some water heating in much less convenient containers that had to be lifted. It would be placed in the outdoor kitchen / laundry room. A retractable awning would allow things to happen, out of the bright sunlight after it has reached temperature.
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Laundry Soaker. Sometimes it's nice to leave something sitting in hot water for a long time. Fill it up in the morning and do the wash in the evening. If the stain doesn't come out by then, it's not going to. My little washer won't accommodate horse blankets or big rugs. They will fit this just fine.

Solar dryer. Dry beans, corn and other things. It might have to be combined with a flat plate collector with a little fan that moves the warmest air to the bottom where that would find its own way up and out.
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Baby bath tub. It's a nice height and no sharp edges. Not for a really little baby but a toddler who enjoys splashing around. You would take the baby out, before using The Dumping function. Or just heat the water in that and put the baby in the more standard plastic washing tub.
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Washing dishes. Again this only works when there's a crowd. It's going to reach its maximum temperature at approximately 4 p.m.. There's not much variation on this throughout the year. So it needs to be covered with an insulating blanket in order to stay hot for the suppertime dishes. A much smaller container of hot water would be used for the rinse cycle. I generally like to leave the dishes until the sink fills up. But this is a pain because the water I soak them in, gets cold. With this, you could go an extra day without a problem. It would heat up again the next day and again you have the option of washing them. We don't have to do a 15-gallon wash every day. Sometimes we might use as little as five gallons. It would reach a higher maximum temperature when not filled. There is no water shortage where I'm going.
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I'm sure there are more things that could be done. I can see that I would be able to make use of at least five of these.

Dan Boone wrote:I honestly thought I was going to click through and find out that you had scored one of those old round cast iron cauldrons that we always used to see in those mid-20th-century racist cartoons and comic books where third world peoples with bones in their noses were in the process of boiling up some missionaries or an intrepid colonialist explorer in a safari hat.

These fellows live just a couple Islands over from me. They openly celebrate their history of cannibalism. I'm sure they'd like to borrow the pot for something.

That is a super cool pot!

I would use it to make applesauce, especially if you're right about the steam function keeping things from burning.  That would be really useful.

I wonder what it takes to put something on a container ship?  That would be the way to get it to the Philippines, right?

Julia Winter wrote:That is a super cool pot!

I would use it to make applesauce, especially if you're right about the steam function keeping things from burning.  That would be really useful.

I wonder what it takes to put something on a container ship?  That would be the way to get it to the Philippines, right?

Yes, but I wouldn't want to ship it alone, since I think that would be cost prohibitive. I'd like to get a bunch of stuff together. There are plenty of things that I could see sending this way, including spices that I will produce, moringa leaf, banana fiber and soap. But there's not much that I would bring from Canada. We already know that mr. Duterte does not want us to send any more garbage. In a year or so, I will contact a shipper to see how much to transport a large variety of items. It's difficult to get good quality garden tools, that I have an oversupply of here, since I pick them up at yard sales and I find them at my demolition projects. Maybe I can piggyback onto a container from a Canadian manufacturer.
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The only thing that leaves this island destined for the Philippines, in any quantity, is lumber. Most of what we sell them are bulk goods like ore, lumber and fertilizer. There are a couple Eastern manufacturers sending stuff, but I'm on Vancouver Island. We have trees. So it looks like I will have to find someone who is shipping privately. Maybe somebody who is moving there like me.

Shipping containers are very cheap at the Port of Vancouver, because we have more container traffic coming this way, than we do leaving. So the container itself is probably worth more in the Philippines. It might be handy to have my own container. But then, I may purchase land on an island that doesn't contain even one truck set up for that. If there is somebody set up that way, it would mean that I could pack my exports into my own container, then top it up with coconut oil or some other bulk product that is commonly sent from the Philippines to Canada. But that's a whole lot of maybe, when we're talking about a big cooking pot.

I don't go in for head cheese but if you do,  that would be a great vessel for it.
A local  Vietnamese restaurant uses an off site kitchen to make pho in vessels like these.
They cook for hours on end,  no need to watch them because the nature of the steam heat means they can't burn the broth.
A solar water heater could be great for all day cooking in this pot.

I wonder,  once you get set up, would people who own their own sailboats be interested in delivering goods like this in return for room and board?

I never thought of getting someone with their own sailboat to do it, but I suppose that's a possibility. It's not something I'm going to pursue immediately, since there's no address to send it to. But I am going to pursue other similar items. If you get enough of almost anything together, it's worth doing something with.

As with the rest of the world, many of the big things that get shipped to the Philippines come from China. Lots of container traffic there. There's probably lots of things like this in North America that would be considered obsolete, and someone in the third world would love to have it.

 They make a sticky rice thing, where the rice is stirred and stirred and stirred until it becomes one giant blob of goo. Its flavored in various ways and a favorite dessert. This would be the perfect vessel.
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There's all sorts of street food being sold. Sweet corn is a favorite. And not just in the Philippines. I imagine that a big pot of corn boiling at any County Fair in the US would attract some customers. Some things have to be boiled for a long time to get rid of anti nutritional properties. Boil, then tilt to dump the water and start over.

A former employer in my techie days did projects all over the world. Data storage, networking..

According to him, one project in (I think) Uganda involved internet access for remote stations in the middle of nowhere, way back when this was much less common and much more expensive. Big dish, several feet across.

The install went fine, and they went back to headquarters. Connection was good, all was well.

A couple days later the connection died, and stayed dead. So off they go to middle of nowhere... thet are almost there, when they pass a village. Big party, lots of people out... gathering around the *real* Biggest Free Soup Pot, perched over a roaring fire!

It would be useful if you grow too many vegetables and want to preserve them - pickling vat.

Could also be used for meat but in the tropics I'd be hesitant unless it's overnight or some type of cooling system can be used to avoid it spoiling.

Yes I believe in dealing with meat very quickly. I won't be hanging carcasses for 6 weeks or doing any of the tenderizing stuff that people sometimes do, other than pounding it and adding tenderizer spices. Every chicken that we killed was eaten the same day. Once I have reliable refrigeration, from my own solar panels, I will put certain meats in the fridge to marinade. But it's doubtful that I would do enough to fill that pot.

Many pigs are butchered when they aren't really large. I could see putting all of the meat in there with oil and spices, but then cooking it all separately, on the same day. I was offered a small pig for the equivalent of $25 Canadian. I could see doing one of them for a group event, and then refrigerating the leftovers. It's not hard to get a big group of people together who would like to eat. I just need to make sure that they are people who are doing something on the farm, so that they are somehow mine to feed.

Really good food is probably the best way to retain good help. A woman who works at my favorite restaurant, receives the equivalent of about $3 a day. I asked why she doesn't move on from that job. She has three children, and the owner of the restaurant sends her home with more than enough to feed the family until she returns the next evening. She's poor, but the kids aren't going to starve. Some jobs pay a little more but by the time people by their own food they don't have that $3 a day for themselves.

A pot like that would be wonderful to have at butchering time.  First throw all the bones cut from the carcass as you bone the meat for canning/freezing, and make a wonderful pot of bone broth (then can it).  Follow up by rendering out all the fat/tallow you saved in a cool place and can that after purifying it well.  Most folks waste that fat, but beef tallow is a prime frying fat due to its high smoke point, and is excellent ground into venison burger to make it more juicy.  Pork fat, of course, needs to have the lard fat, and other (inter-organ) fat rendered separately, as their uses are different.  Even deer tallow is a prime leather conditioner, and in some countries used as a muscle rub; and mutton tallow is a traditional anti-rust rub-on for woodworking tools because it does not mark the wood.  Don't waste the fat, everything is good for something, if only axle grease or shoe dressing, lol.

It would hold a lot of ice/water to cool down freshly butchered & plucked chickens, or small game.

Anyhow, I can think of lots of wonderful uses for a huge pot mostly culinary, but a few others.  

Boil your wash in it to get those whites (underwear & kitchen towels, mostly) clean & de-germed (what did you think folks did before chemicals?).  

Use to chill down large quantities of bottled water (or other beverages)
Similarly you could boil an awful lot of cowboy coffee in that thing!

Rig a rack in the bottom, use as a large steamer (does it have a cover? or you can use clean plywood)

Boil wood in it to bend it for making tools, furniture, barrel staves, whatever you need bent wood for.

Use to brine cure meat if you have a large enough cool place to keep it.  The pouring ability makes it easy to drain, rearrange the meat or change the brine if it gets ropy.

Bathe small children.

Nice find!  Wish I had room for something that size!