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bheggeseth · 09-04-2011, 11:00 PM

First a quick introduction as I am new here. I love to build things, I have tinkered with restoring old vacuum tube radios, I currently have a small work shop in the garage that I use for building wooden long bows, and I have in the past built two small boats. For Christmas I got my wife two books on how to brew beer as she expressed some interest. She is the manager of a wine and spirits store which brings some cool fringe benefits. So after brewing our first batch of beer I started searching the internet and quickly found your wonderful forum and found myself a new hobby. You can’t go wrong when your hobby yields beer!
The first item up for construction is a mash tun for all grain brewing, with the plan to batch sparge. I started with cutting the top of the keg open with a dremel and some small cut off wheels. I probably used up 50 disks. The thought is to insulate the keggle very well by enclosing it with a wooden frame filled in with some kind of spray insulation, in a sense it will be a big can koozie. Not sure completely why but I thought I might be better without the top ring on the keggle. If anyone was curious it will take you about 4 hours with an angle grinder. I hope to silver solder tri clamps on, one on the bottom for the drain, and two on the sides for a thermometer and heating element. I will add some more pictures as I go. Any thoughts are welcome.

ellijo89 · 09-05-2011, 02:45 AM

That looks great. I really like how it looks without the ring on top. The bottom drain is a great idea along with the thermo probe. My only concern is the idea for a element in it, meaning that you would be heating the mash directly which I think you would have a great risk of burning the grist. Unless you had it under the false bottom and just heats the wort. If I read this wrong and this is just for boiling and not mashing then ignore all I just wrote lol. But one way or another looks like a great start

noremorse1 · 09-05-2011, 02:55 AM

Awesome. Make sure the rolled bottom is not completely sealed or it could explode. If it is, tap a hole or two in it.

More info: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/warning-keggle-owners-please-read-41422/

bheggeseth · 09-05-2011, 03:36 AM

My plan with the heating element is to only turn it on during while heating the water up to strike temp. My though is that the heating element will heat up the entire mash tun: water, keg, insulation ect. Then I will turn off the heating element, add the grains, cover and hopefully the mash tun holds the temp for the mash duration. Untill I find a second keg I will have to use my boil kettle to heat up the mash out water.

Thanks for the explosion warning, I did check and this keg has four holes drilled in the bottom ring.

**outside92129** · 09-05-2011, 03:51 AM

Welcome to your new hobby! You'll quickly find this rabbit hole goes deeper than you ever could have imagined!

Maybe you can destine this keg for the brew kettle instead? An upside down keg has the tri-clamp already on the bottom..

ellijo89 · 09-05-2011, 04:10 AM

Yeah then no worries on burning the grist then. Sounds like a solid build. Only annoyance could be when you stir in the grain during mash in with the element in the way. But that is a small annoyance and not something to stop you from building it.