Boil Kettle Ideas needed

I'm about to start welding out my keg's for the eherms system that I'm building and not sure of the best way to build the BK to keep trub out and have good flow. Any suggestions?

I use a paint strainer bag for hops. There are other options for filtering hops or you could use a hop stopper or false bottom in the kettle.

Do you think using a false bottom would allow me to use a bottom drain?

I have flat bottom kettles with a false bottom, I put my bottom drain off centered, I get a nice trub cone in the center after a 15 minute whirlpool. if I toss an oz of whole cones in I get next to no trub or pellet bits in my fermentors.

Are you planning to bottom drain by using the original hole in the keg where the spear goes? That would eliminate any possibility of you whirlpooling, unless you whirlpooled and then poured your first bit from the keg directly into the trash. Might actually be a good way to clear out most of the hop gunk.

BadNewsBrewery said:

Are you planning to bottom drain by using the original hole in the keg where the spear goes? That would eliminate any possibility of you whirlpooling, unless you whirlpooled and then poured your first bit from the keg directly into the trash. Might actually be a good way to clear out most of the hop gunk.

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Was not planning on a bottom drain but adding a 2" Tri Clover for a clean out. I was thinking of using something like Sabco's racking arm.

Coffee_Creek said:

Was not planning on a bottom drain but adding a 2" Tri Clover for a clean out. I was thinking of using something like Sabco's racking arm.

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I've thought about doing something like that. One way would be to weld a spud or a 1/2 coupler on the bottom 2-3 inches from the keggle wall for a wort out port away from the trub cone. That way you could avoid a dip tube, have your port below the false bottom, have a big CIP port at the bottom and still whirlpool.

runs4beer said:

I've thought about doing something like that. One way would be to weld a spud or a 1/2 coupler on the bottom 2-3 inches from the keggle wall for a wort out port away from the trub cone. That way you could avoid a dip tube, have your port below the false bottom, have a big CIP port at the bottom and still whirlpool.

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Would draining through the bottom thru a false bottom and into a filter like brewers hardware sells work?

I’ve not seen brewer’s hardware’s trub filter in action but from what I understand it would do the job all on it’s own. I feel get similar results with out a $130 filter by adding an ounce of whole cone hops (low AA%, neutral aroma if need be) at knock out and recirculating through the false bottom (5-10 minutes) and then I continue recirculation with the immersion chiller in place. I think that the false bottom wouldn’t do much in the way of catching the pellet particle without the whole cone hops; the recirculation will reduce the trub with out a false bottom. My thought is the whole cones catch the pellet and then the whole cone + pellet catch the bulk of the cold break trub.

Both together might remove too much trub..?

I have a whirlpool boil keggle. I have bottom dump to clean and an outlet where the bottom curve of the keg is to drain wort.











I use a pump to improve the whirlpool and welded pegs in to hold a damn to help keep the cone of hops and break material from exiting keg.

Wow that is the best thing I have ever seen.

jyorger said:

I have a whirlpool boil keggle. I have bottom dump to clean and an outlet where the bottom curve of the keg is to drain wort.

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I use a pump to improve the whirlpool and welded pegs in to hold a damn to help keep the cone of hops and break material from exiting keg.

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Very nice, what size are the tubes?

1 inch. All my tri clamp equipment came from brewers hardware.

jyorger said:

1 inch. All my tri clamp equipment came from brewers hardware.

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How are setting it up to whirlpool?

My outlet is on the bottom curve of the keg. First the outlet goes down to a chugger pump and up to a 3 way valve straight into the tangential inlet. That gets the hops and hot break forming in the middle of the kettle. Then I turn 3 way valve to go to a brewers hardware filter into a blichmann plate chiller into tangential inlet. Once it's down to pitching temp I go back to the route with out chiller because it gets a stronger whirlpool. Wait 20 minutes and then to fermenter.

jyorger said:

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This is one very nice rig, thank you for sharing!!!!
It gives me a lot of good idea's for my build.
I plan on doing all bottom drains. Is your MLT bottom drain?

Ya mash is bottom drain. It's on the right in the photo

jyorger said:

Ya mash is bottom drain. It's on the right in the photo

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Have you tried using your herms to chill?

I love the idea. But I've not tried it.