Insulated Keggles

[Landshark]

Who's using an insulated keg as a keggle or mashtun? (ex Miller type)

Any benefits or downsides to converting one of these type kegs into brewing equipment?

Thanks!

-Shark

[NHBrewer]

I use a converted sanke with false bottom as a mash/lauter. Works great. I insulate mine with an old blanket when it is cold out. This week it was about 50F and windy and I lost a couple degrees over my 45 minute mash. The advantages I find are Size, large : and Easy to clean also durability. I had mine wrapped in insulation in the past but when I would clean the tun the insulation would get all wet and not dry well. I ended up removing it and going with the blanket. This is a common vessel for this purpose. If I had to replace it I would probably go with a cooler for the price. To convert you will need to either weld a valve or get a weldless fitting, cut the top and make/buy some sort of lauter. It can be done.

I also use another for kettle. Best again with outlet valve.

I use another for a Hot liquor tank. I don't have a valve in mine and get by but would be easier if I had a valve.

Chris

[Landshark]

Thanks for the feedback. I've insulated my boil kettle and it's made a huge difference in getting the boil started faster. Brewing outside(or gargage) always requires something to improve heating efficiency (especiall in MI).

The insulated keg looked like it would definintely help. I've been using an Igloo 10 gal cooler for my mash but this will help expand my capacity. The rubber coating looks to be real durable. I guess I need to understand the melt point of the material before trying to use it a HLT. My guess is that the melt point is going to be significantly higher than 212F.

Q./ Did you use a weldless valve connection or did you weld the fittings? Seems like the HTL and Mash could accomodate either with little issue. I personally like welded fittings for the boil kettle as the "high value" product is here. No leaks allowed. HLT and Mash - Not so important to have welded fittings.

[beltbuckle]

I have a 3-keggle system (3 tier). The system is all electric (7000 watts in the HLT, 7000 watts in the boil kettle). I have the HLT and mash tun insulated with about 4 layers of the silver "bubble wrap" type insulation you can get at a big box store. It doesn't have open cells so when you have an overflow or are spraying everything with the hose, it doesn't absorb water and mash juice and start growing bad things. Plus it looks pretty decent, especially if you use the foil tape to match.

Note in the picture my keggles are upside down to keep the dust out.

[Brandt]

Beltbuckle: that's a nice setup. I currently am all electric, but I use the same tank for boil and for a HLT. I have more kegs to cut up, and the fittings for them and hope to build a dedicated boil kettle soon. But, my question is: can you run both at the same time? You must have put in a dedicated circuit for the brew system cause I pigglyback off my dryer outlet which I think is only 30 amps. I don't thnk I could run both a HLT and a boil kettle simultaneously. I've considered upgrading the breaker, but the wire is only 10 guage.... proabably a bad idea.

[beltbuckle]

Beltbuckle: that's a nice setup. I currently am all electric, but I use the same tank for boil and for a HLT. I have more kegs to cut up, and the fittings for them and hope to build a dedicated boil kettle soon. But, my question is: can you run both at the same time? You must have put in a dedicated circuit for the brew system cause I pigglyback off my dryer outlet which I think is only 30 amps. I don't thnk I could run both a HLT and a boil kettle simultaneously. I've considered upgrading the breaker, but the wire is only 10 guage.... proabably a bad idea.

Thanks. Yes, I could run them both the HLT and the boil kettle the same time (but have no reason to). I have a dedicated 50 amp circuit that I use for brewing and welding so I can run each one at 3500 Watts (about 15 amps) at the same time with 20 amps or so of head room. I only use both heating elements (the full 7000 Watts) for the initial heat-up. Once the boil is going, 3500 watts is plenty to keep a nice boil going.

[Brandt]

I gotcha. Nice to have that flexibility in your system. Mine is controlled by a PiD so it's either shoot for a temp past boil and boil hard, or aim for boiling and it boils softly. My next project will be a kettle with a potentiometer from a stove so I can fine tune the boil. The only reason I want to run a HLT at the same time is for back to back brews which I used to do every brew day until I went electric. Now it just takes to long to wait for the sparge to finish so I can empty the kettle to use for boiling. Having only one electric kettle added an hour to the brew day, even though I preheat with 110v 1500w heaters. But once that 5500w element opens up, I get to full boil in under 20 minutes.

I think, rather than add a new circuit, I will continue to use 110v heaters, to heat up sparge water. Two of them can get 10 gallons up to 180 in about an hour, which is not a terribly long time to mash.

[NHBrewer]

Q./ Did you use a weldless valve connection or did you weld the fittings? Seems like the HTL and Mash could accomodate either with little issue. I personally like welded fittings for the boil kettle as the "high value" product is here. No leaks allowed. HLT and Mash - Not so important to have welded fittings.

I have a Sabco mash/lauter so that has a welded fitting from Sabco but the Kettle I put in a weldless fitting. It leaked a little bit originally but seals itself up. It tends to do the same thing each time I remove the valve for cleaning. So I don't do this everytime I brew. I feel its not needed.


Chris