Three Tier Brewery type question

I'm going all grain, and because of my profession, doing a lot of over-thinking! Anyway, in thinking about a three tiered system, I've got a question. If you have a HLT first, then your mash tun, and you have a spigot to drain from the HLT directly to the mash tun, how do you know the volume of water you are adding when you mash, and batch sparge? I'm thinking of using a brew bucket to measure the amount of mash and sparge water to add. Also, in thinking, those of you that use a pump to pump water to mash and sparge must have the same problem?

Sight glasses are the easiest way to monitor liquid volumes and levels.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

Sight glasses are the easiest way to monitor liquid volumes and levels.

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+1
when going to a three tier the point is to NOT have to lift water. So to do this I piped water to my HLT and have a valve to turn it on/off. With the sight glass marked with 1 qt lines I can the the right amount of water I need without climbing or lifting.

FSR402 said:

+1
when going to a three tier the point is to NOT have to lift water. So to do this I piped water to my HLT and have a valve to turn it on/off. With the sight glass marked with 1 qt lines I can the the right amount of water I need without climbing or lifting.

Click to expand...

Thanks (to both replies so far!) guys. So, I'm guessing if I'm going that route, I need to ad a site glass to my keggle. Hm........
Think I seen a DIY siteglass thing somewhere...

FSR402 said:

+1
when going to a three tier the point is to NOT have to lift water. So to do this I piped water to my HLT and have a valve to turn it on/off. With the sight glass marked with 1 qt lines I can the the right amount of water I need without climbing or lifting.

Click to expand...

FSR, I hope you don't mind, but I am pretty much going to "steal the patent" on your brewstand. Where did you find the tires and mounting brackets for the wheels? The non-turning ones I had figured out, but not the ones that need to rotate so you can steer the beast.

I just found this thread, but I'm with McKBrew- Nice wheels! Pneumatic with tube or tubeless?

Harbor Freight is your friend for cheap wheels like that. I have some on a cart that I bought there that have help up well. It is hard to beat their sales for such stuff.

ThreeDogsNE said:

Harbor Freight is your friend for cheap wheels like that. I have some on a cart that I bought there that have help up well. It is hard to beat their sales for such stuff.

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Yup that's where I got the wheels and they are cheap. Not really sure if they have tubes or not but if I had to guess I would say they do. My rig sits in my back garage and I brew in the front garage. There is a lose stone driveway that goes back there. That is why I went with the big 10" wheels so that it will roll on the stone driveway fully loaded.
It's great Everything I need to brew is on the rig so all I have to do is pull it up front, hook up the water to the rig and start brewing.