Marking kegs

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acleanthous

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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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

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.
 
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