My freestanding, bottom drain, direct fired, fly sparging MLT with sight gauge.

I have a herms system; however I wanted a bottom drain mash tun that I could direct fire if I wanted to step mash. Found a PICO style false bottom while searching the forums and decided it was just what I needed.

Ordered a sight gauge from Bobby_M, however I had to place it so low in the keggle to clear the false bottom it was on the weld and wouldn't seal, so I had to solder it in.



I mounted an old turkey fryer burner off center on the back side to avoid the bottom fitting. The legs are made from an old steel bed frame my neighbor gave me. I also added a homemade temperature probe so I could monitor the temp of the mash during recirculation/Step mashing.



Added a soldered in fitting in the lid for my sparge diffuser.




I have several sizes of silicone hose I can use to adjust the height based on the grain bill.



I have everything cut and fitted, just need to take it all apart and paint the legs and Insulate with reflectix.

nice! i dig it

sweet looking false bottom! nice work.

Id like to a see a pic of the burner/drain and false bottom if you have the time.

Nice work. I'll be going that route with my BK as well with only some minor modifications.

jammin said:

sweet looking false bottom! nice work.

Id like to a see a pic of the burner/drain and false bottom if you have the time.

Click to expand...

Here are some pics of the false bottom and how I currently have the burner mounted. I am going to weld a short tab on the cross piece and move the burner another 1-2 inches towards the center. If I run it about half way all of the flame is contained within the skirt of the keg, anything higher than half way it shoots out past the edge a bit. PICO False Bottom

looks great - thanks!

Thanks for the comments, anyone have suggestions for insulating this thing? Trying to decide if I should insulate then bolt the legs over the top of the insulation, or should I insulate it over top of the legs? The insulation I have for it is reflectix.

Thanks,

Got the legs painted and added 2 layers of reflectix under the legs.




Also welded some square tubing to the bottom o the legs and added some screw in feet to make it easier to level up.



Just need to finish the burner mount and get it put back on, and finish insulating the top and I'll be ready to give it a trial run.