Just want to throw out an idea to help de-clutter the new Brewhaus. I see at least 4 sanke kegs around the brewhaus, inside and outside, if we could turn these into keggles we could have some very durable 15 gallon kettles and we could get rid of the glut of kettles hanging above, which will not be possible in the new space. Chuck says that there is some sort of metal fab shop next door to the new place we could use to do the welding and he has a jig for cutting the tops off. This would help us de-clutter, provide us with durable equipment, and uniformity across all the brew bays which would help standardize people's recipe calculations. In addition this could provide a 15 gallon kettle at every bay for those interested in doing larger batches for barreling and whatnot. The cost would be minimal, but we'd have to decide on the fittings, adding sight glasses And thermometers or not, and negotiate the welding fees.
Sat, Jul 27, 2013 - 2:02pm
#1
Keggles or Helping De-Clutter the New Brewhaus
Knowing very little about keggles at the beginning of the day, I've found we can also use weld less fittings. Morebeer.com has such a beast for about $36. We could convert those kegs real cheap if we went that route...
If we can get the fittings welded for beer/free, welded fittings are actually cheaper.
I do like this direction and think it is one worth pursuing. We will need to cute the Counter flow chiller down significantly to make this work.
I put my geggle on the CFC all the time (granted I am tall).
Keggles take much longer to heat up than the 15g pots. I thought all the kegs left in the brewhouse are already keggles? 2 are mine, 1 is dave's. Not sure what the other one is. eople are free to use mine, there is just no place to put in on the floor so I keep them in the loft.
I actually think it makes very little sense to have the CFC be immobile, while we bring 5-10 gallons of near-boiling wort to it. Once we're in the new place, I think we should re-design the chiller/pump to move from station to station. After all, the chiller is fed by a pump, so there's no reason that it needs to be below the kettle at all. Only the pump needs to be below kettle-level, and that's pretty easy to achieve.
Whether we standardize on keggles or not, we certainly don't need as many kettles as we have. We could get by with 2 10g pots and 2 15g pots, and maybe 1 or 2 others for miscellaneous purposes.
I agree with adam that would just change the CFC to be mobile and be able to take it from station to station. As is that stand is going to break soon.
I like the mobile CFC idea! Especially after Ken and I carrieded 15 gallons of wort across the brew house yesterday. I would rather use pots if the keggles take a long time to heat up.
I second the mobile chiller idea, perhaps some sort of cart rig with a pre chiller mounted in it as well so when the groundwater gets too warm you could toss a bag of ice on the pre chiller coil, turn a valve, and route it through there if necessary. It would take a little designing and figuring out, but it might be a nice feature to have available, and I recall seeing an immersion chiller or two laying around that could be used for that purpose. Just trying to contribute some fresh ideas and get som e discussion going to help make the new place as awesome and efficient as possible. From the responses it looks like some are and some aren't interested in moving to all keggles. I like Adman's mixed approach, of 2x10 gal. pots and 2x15 gal. with perhaps the 15ers being keggles, depending upon what we already have. We have a golden opportunity to de-clutter and streamline with this move, the new place is a blank slate and I think we should make the most of all the experience and knowledge gained.
I love the idea of a mobile cart with pre-chiller integrated. I think our current chiller setup could be fairly easy dissembled and mounted to a cart. We would just have to figure out how the pre-chiller would be attached in-line.
that rack with all the trays on it might be perfect for this.
...igz...
Going forward, we might consider these pots for 10 gallon batches. They're relatively reasonably-priced and pretty well thought of on HBT. A lot easier to deal with than a keggle as well.