Jersh

Recipes 

So tonight I finally got around to drilling a hole in a recently acquired keg to install a weldless bulkhead fitting. I bought a pre-made dip tube from the LHBS as well. Stupid me drilled the hole about an inch or so higher than what it really should have been. So my dip-tube isn't anywhere near the bottom of the keggle. In fact it is sitting pretty much flush with the false bottom. I can certainly make a longer dip-tube, all that will require is a quick trip to the HD for a piece of copper pipe. My main concern is that I might have trouble draining this thing if I have an ~3-4 inch dip tube? Any thoughts/suggestion?

JewBrew

Recipes 

Your keg is ruined ill recycle it for you, but if you decide to keep it....

You should not have a problem with a long dip tube (think of it like a siphon). What you could do is install a thermometer in that hole and make a new hole for the dip tube

mattd2

Recipes 

I would say if you are pumping out of the keggle you should be alright, and if you are gravity feeding aslong as the outlet after the valve is lower than the bottom of the keg you should be good as it will siphon the last 3-4 inchs below the placement of the fittings

AzAdrian

Recipes 

You could always weld a plate down there to raise the bottom.../shrug. Just an idea.

JewBrew

Recipes 

Do that and next time you brew you wont even get to smell the hops before you die. See the link below. Any sealed air pocket in a keg will burst when the air inside of it gets heated.
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=44238

AzAdrian

Recipes 

Would drilling holes in the bottome suffice? I'm a medical person....I don't know jack about the physics behind the keggle possibly bursting.. heh

Mirage

Recipes 

Yea you could but I think that it would be more trouble than just doing one of the above suggestions.

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weirdboy

Recipes 

I like the idea of using the hole for a thermometer, which is something you'll probably want anyway.

Jersh

Recipes 

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I went the easy route and just cut a longer diptube to get to the bottom of the kettle.... I'm in the middle of a test boil now to determine my boil-off rate, and then i'm going to let it cool over night before I drain it tomorrow to test how well the new dip-tube works... we shall see, hopefully it drains well... I cut the tube so that it's only about 2-3 mm above the bottom of the keggle, so hopefully there isn't hardly any dead-space.... Should I leave a little more of a gap to prevent hot-break and pellet hop slug from clogging it? I'll be boiling with a false bottom but I'm not sure how much of the sludge that will capture....

Sacdan

Recipes 

Try using a SS Scrubie. I use one and it works fairly well. I put it under the pickup tube.