acleanthous

Recipes 

So I have created an all grain setup from used kegs. One of the big kickers that is throwing my calculations off everytime is that we have very crude form of measuring quantities in all of our kettles. Has anyone marked up their kegs to help out with this.

Its driving me nuts, I will plan a recipe for ten gallons. We have eyeballed where 5, 7, 10 and 12 gallons are on the kegs. But, inevitably by the time we put the wort into the carboys it ends up at 8, when shooting for 10. Anyone have any methods that can help me more accurately mark my kegs?

Thanks,
Alex

RegionalChaos

Recipes 

You could use a stick or rule to measure the water level. You could look at getting sight glasses installed.

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How I brew: Stir plate starters, Extract, Full boil in a Keggle, 10 gallon batches.
Brewing upgrades in progress: temp controlled ferment, stir plate re-work, building mash tun, milling station

Planned House Ales: an Amber, an IPA, a dark IPA, a Mango Ale, a blueberry oatmeal stout, a dry Irish stout, a honey wheat, Apfelwien

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ggoodman

Recipes 

Used a water proof pen. poured a gallon of water in then drew A line so on till it was full
then I went back with a dremel and made groves on my lines. even gallon marks got 2" lines with the major marks 5, 10, 15 gallons receiving crosses. other odd gallon marks were .5" my cousin just bought a sight glass.

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Fly Casters Brewing

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Snakebone

Recipes 

I used a hack saw and put small cuts on my paddle to mark each gallon. I start my batches with 13 gallons in the boil kettle. One gallon usually boils off in an hour. The hops soak some up and I usually end up with a hair over 10 gallons to keg after fermentation.

diatonic

Recipes 

Sight gauge/glass.

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.:diatonic:.

1° - Ed Wort's Apfelwien (10/5/2012) — Ed Wort's Apfelwien (10/22/2012)
2° - Nuthin
Aging in a wine barrel - En Perpetuum—Solera (1/23/2011)
Kegs - Club Barleywine (4/23/2011)

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SouthernYankee

Recipes 

I installed a sight glass, then took a one gallon jug of water and filled the keg up with it and marked it on the site glass. Did this till I reached 15 gal.

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http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/welding-101-brew-stand-build-2-a-238098/#post2845270


Welding 101.
New welder building a "brutus brewstand".

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/welding-101-fun-brutus-build-164749/

CenCalWorthog

Recipes 

stainless steel ruler, mark it after adding each gallon.

shortyjacobs

Recipes 

I used a yardstick. Poured 1, 2, and 3 gallons of water into each of my pots and measured at each step. The reason for multiple volumes is some vessels, (like my keg) have a dished bottom, so 1 gallon takes up more inches than each following gallon, (first gallon is 2.25", next gallons are 1.75" or something like that). I threw it all into a spreadsheet I have going as I brew. Whenever I need x amount of water, I punch the number into the spreadsheet, and it spits out y inches. Or, if I wanna know how much I have in a pot, I measure, punch in x inches to my spreadsheet, and it spits out y gallons/quarts.

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(As of 10-24-2011)
Primary - Steppe 112 PA, 2x Monday RyePA
Aging - None :-(
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sirsloop

Recipes 

PM Bobby_M ... he has real nice sight glass kits available. Its basically a weldless fitting with a polycarbonate vertical tube. Once you calibrate it you can see exactly what your volume is at any time.

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whoneedsabeer

Recipes 

I wouldn't notch the stainless with a cutting tool. You'll get rust and other nasties that will be really hard to clean.

Go with the sightglass or some kind of measuring stick.