Pressure Guage

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Craig5_12

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I'm trying to avoid adding an extra hole in my converted keg kettle for a sight guage. Instead of having a tube indicating the level of wort, I'm wondering if you could just use a pressure guage?
This would entail adding the guage to the outlet and then adding water to the kettle in small increments to calibrate the guage.
I don't think a full kettle would add that much pressure so the guage would have to be "touchy" for small amounts. Maybe 10-20psi or something like that? What do you think?
 
The pressure exerted by a column of water one foot high is .433 psi. Said another way, one psi equals 2.31 feet of water. You would need a very sensitive and expensive gauge that reads in inches of water column. Not very practical. IMHO.
 
Thanks for the reply.
How expensive are we talking here? I tried to run a search but couldn't come up with anything besides a 0-15psig, which wouldn't be accurate enough. Sounds like this won't work though....at least not in my budget.
 
A gauge with a range of 0-30 in/WC (inches/water column) would be between $185-$200 or so. Like I said, not too practical.
 
Instead of going thru all that trouble to tell the level of your wort why not mark your spoon or paddle that you use when brewing. That what I did and it works great.
 
You'd also have to take into account the gravity of the wort, since it's slightly heavier than water and will change with each batch.
 
The SG of the wort changes during the boil and also from beer to beer. Furthermore, the turbulence and all the bubbles would make it hard to get a good reading.
 
Craig5_12 said:
I'm trying to avoid adding an extra hole in my converted keg kettle for a sight guage.

Just add a tee fitting between the existing kettle spigot and your shut off valve. Plug a clear piece of tubing into the leg of the tee to act as the sight gauge. No extra hole in the keg needed. :mug:
 
Thanks for all the replies guys and the links Kladue! I know I have the option of adding a T fitting to the outlet but that won't work with my current setup as I have the outlet underneath the Mash Tun for the pump and the CFC. This is why I was trying to come up with something else.....if all it ends up being is an interesting thread!
Currently I've made a dipstick that I put in the wort, but it's not as accurate as I'd like due to Hops and foam on the top of the boil. I think a measurement from the top of the kettle down to the wort may be a little better.....
 
You could copy the method used in washing machines and bubble tubes in industrial level sensors by fabricating a piece of tubing to go inside the kettle with the gauge attached to the top. Level sensing is by the pressure developed by the liquid depth above the end of the tube. The only caveat with this method is there can not be any leakage at the gauge end, or any joints in tube above liquid line. If you want to you could use small bore tube from the tube in the kettle to the gauge to move the gauge dial to a handy spot on your system. Tubing size for inside kettle could be 1/2" copper water pipe with a 1/4" line to the gauge, soldered joints would be less likely to cause problems but compression fittings with a bit of aquarium grade RTV smeared on tube at ferrule would work too.
 
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