Working into a keggle

I'm gathering information for my next phase of sourcing my equipment. Keggle! Got a keg for 40 bucks.....a score!....now i'm looking into how to work it into a keggle. I understand that concept for a dip tube. Who is using one? Pros vs cons on a dip tube that picks up at the center of the keg, or stick with one that picks up at the end of the side before it dips lower?

My first thought is that if it picks up at the lowest, your gonna get all your junk, hops, break etc, but a side pick leaves beer behind....Thoughts?

I vote side pickup. You can just tailor your recipes to account for the equipment loss.

Any idea what that loss is like? Haven't cut the keg yet

The bottom depression of a keg holds nearly one gallon.

I like mine in 25%ish of the way in so my chiller can sit on the bottom of the keggle with out resting on or bumping rthe tube.

this is going to be a boil kettle?

I have three kegs currently, one is a HLT, and one is an MLT, while one is the boil kettle. Where you decide to have the diptube is really dependent on the function- my HLT is bottom draining (as is my MLT) and for the boil kettle, I have a ballvalve with a side diptube that I can swap out to a bazooka tube if I have a bazillion leaf hops (like today!).

I made 3 recently, make sure you fill them with water before you cut the top off cause it is significantly quieter that way, I made all my dip tubes in 1/2" rigid and in the center, when you are draining you can watch it and stop it before it sucks up the trub. And I used Bobby's sight glass kits with the thermometer on my HLT and BK and the 3" round 6" long thermometer in my mash tun, well worth the investment. I just made a new IC out of 1/2 tubing (my 3/8" just didn't cut it) I also put legs on it so it sits just over the dip tube.

Yooper said:

this is going to be a boil kettle?

I have three kegs currently, one is a HLT, and one is an MLT, while one is the boil kettle. Where you decide to have the diptube is really dependent on the function- my HLT is bottom draining (as is my MLT) and for the boil kettle, I have a ballvalve with a side diptube that I can swap out to a bazooka tube if I have a bazillion leaf hops (like today!).

Click to expand...

So you did brew then...Awesome!

My BK has a center dip tube and I suck every last drop to the fermenters, break and all. I use hop bags to not plug up the plate chiller.

lschiavo said:

So you did brew then...Awesome!

My BK has a center dip tube and I suck every last drop to the fermenters, break and all. I use hop bags to not plug up the plate chiller.

Click to expand...

I did brew. It wasn't.........awesome. Some flour got through the false bottom and clogged up BOTH pumps during the ramp up for mash out. I took apart one pump, but it's still making a really awful noise. I'm going to take it apart again tomorrow. I had a minor flood, too. Bob thought it was major, but it couldn't have been more than 30 gallons of water. He's still mad.


But the beer is blurping away at 66 degrees, and the compost is full of spent hops!




I like the side diptube for the boil kettle, and use that the most but that many leaf hops swapping out to the bazooka tube makes a huge difference!

Yooper said:

I did brew. It wasn't.........awesome. Some flour got through the false bottom and clogged up BOTH pumps during the ramp up for mash out. I took apart one pump, but it's still making a really awful noise. I'm going to take it apart again tomorrow. I had a minor flood, too. Bob thought it was major, but it couldn't have been more than 30 gallons of water. He's still mad.

But the beer is blurping away at 66 degrees, and the compost is full of spent hops!

I like the side diptube for the boil kettle, and use that the most but that many leaf hops swapping out to the bazooka tube makes a huge difference!

Click to expand...

Wow. That's a very clam response! Was this in a basement, or garage? 30 gallons and busted pump, and still got the beer done! That's a silver lining! So much for complaining if I miss OG by a few points.

diptherunner said:

Was this in a basement, or garage?

Click to expand...

Um, no. I brew indoors. So it was a huge mess. On two floors. Apparently, water seeks the lowest point. Through the floor if need be.

The last time I had a day like this, I called lschiavo on the phone and told him I was ****ing quitting brewing.

He calmly said something about so many "f bombs" his ears hurt. And I kept brewing.

so now I'm pretty calm most of the time. I was flat on my back, under the boil kettle taking the pump off of the stand and just hoping I wasn't going to have a boilover!

this just reminded me- I've been toying with the idea of a bottom draining BK, but due to some clogging issues, it might be better to keep it the way it is!

I have diptubes but I saw a thread where he cut the bottoms out and made them into false bottoms then bought the triclamp adapter from bobby to attach to the "top" to make them bottom draining. It looked really cool, I don't think clogging would be any more of an issue with that than with diptubes since the ID of most diptubes is less than that of a threaded 1/2" connection (I could be wrong on that just my experience) and you don't have to worry about losing siphon in the diptube. Just my 2 cents.

Transamguy77 said:

I made 3 recently, make sure you fill them with water before you cut the top off cause it is significantly quieter that way, I made all my dip tubes in 1/2" rigid and in the center, when you are draining you can watch it and stop it before it sucks up the trub. And I used Bobby's sight glass kits with the thermometer on my HLT and BK and the 3" round 6" long thermometer in my mash tun, well worth the investment. I just made a new IC out of 1/2 tubing (my 3/8" just didn't cut it) I also put legs on it so it sits just over the dip tube.

Click to expand...

How did you put legs on your chiller? Do you have any pictures?