New MT

[Crut]

Tested out the new site glass tubing yesterday while brewing my double belgian. Both keggles performed flawlessly, and went smoother than ever. Jack at TBC(my boss) let me bring my setup into the brewery so i could use all the cleaning stuff, power, water, everything i needed. Thats so much better than running around in my trashed garage.
The vinyl hose held up perfectly. It got warm and softened up, but never melted/burned or messed up anyway. I just ran cleaner through them then ran iodaphor through and away we went. My volume was almost dead on, my target gravity was .001 low, i figure i can live with this. Finished up, had a couple pints in the pub room, and called it a successful day. I'm on the lookout today since yesterday went so well, nothing goes that smoothly

Oh and i used my barley crusher yesterday too. You guys are going to drill me on this but i went with the motor and belt driven option. I know, you'll chop off a finger. We've used motor driven devices in our shop for years and no problems. I got it all hooked up with the right sized pulleys, set screws and proper base. Tightened everything down, turned it on and voile, a 19 lb grain bill in 1 minute. Sure beats crankin the old coffee grinder. And if I did my calcs right, i should have hit around 74% with the preset crush. Will do another brew and double check then adjust if i have to. I cant wait to do it again next week!!

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Nice job Crut. It's kind of scary when things actually work out as planned.

[BeerMan]

I used the same tubing on my HLT doesn't hold up well to heat swapped it over for silicone tubing from b3, cant write/mark on silicone labels might fix that. I'm going to use copper tube with a third of the diameter removed with a dia grinder and place the tube inside or a marked wooden dowel depends how lazy I am

[Crut]

I started drawing plans for my keg mash tun last week and just about done with it. The only thing i need done now is the coupler welded into it for the ball valve.
THis way I can do two batches at once if i want to use my old set up too. The new single tier will probably be about 3 weeks out at this point

What ya think?

sparge arm-not proven yet, but we'll see how it works out.

I cut the lid off and slit a peice of airhose and filled it with silicone and attached so the lid doesnt fall in and keeps a good seal on the keg.

The sparge arm is adjstable depending on the size of te grain bed. TO adjust, just lift the sparge arm up, and scr4ew in the set screw on the collar. THeres a little circle of plexiglass on the top of the sankey coupler that hold it up to adjust.
-Crut

[Mylo]

Excellent idea with the slit airhose! Where did you get that piece that threads into the top of the keg (I need a few...)? Suggestion for you - replace that hex setscrew with a thumb one (like on old shool barbells). One less thing to hunt around for on brewday (allen wrench). You are also going to have to go easy when you tighten that one - the copper will easily get deformed.

I saw a design for a sparge arm height adjustment on the top somebody's mash tun - where they notched out a 1" piece in a 3/4" pipe and put the 1/2" inside, and used a hose clamp. That seemed to me like it would spread the force out more and prevent the deformation.

Also, are you going to put the holes on the sparge arm facing up or down? I suggest up...


Mylo

[Crut]

thanks mylo
are you talking about the collar with the set screw? im a little confused. The part that the collar sits on is just a peice ofplexiglass drilled out for the copper to go through, it set just inside the sankey coupling.
Im planning on getting the little thumb screw to replace the hex screw for just that reason. I knew if I tightened it oo much it would deform so you just have to tighten it just enough to hold the assembly in place.

O put the holes in the bottom of the sparge, i will try it that way first. If it doesnt work well, i can just desolder one T, turn it around, and theyll be on top. We'll see on its first run though.
Crut

[Mylo]

Right, I guess I was talking about the plexiglass. It looked like aluminum to me. Good luck with the trial run. Let us know how it works out.

Good work, soldier! Dis-missed!



Mylo

[Crut]

Well I got my brew kegs (keggles ) back from the welder today, he put another coupler on the BK and HLT for the new placement of the site gauge(old setup would draw air in from the SG when you turned the pump on and lose the prime.) I had them put the new coupler onto the new MT as well, so all I need is another 1/2" valve and a couple parts from the hardware and ill giver it a test run next week with my amber.
For the first Run I tink im gonna try using a stainless braid and see how that goes.
-Crut