Converted keg loss to trub. Dead space!

I was wondering how much space people have in the bottom of their converted kegs.

I can put two gallons of water in my keg before it gets to the ball valve and starts to gravity feed at all. This seems like an awful lot to me and I was wondering if it's normal or if the valve should have been placed lower.

When brewing a 5 gallon batch I have to start boiling with 9 gallons to yield 5.5 to 6 gallons by the end of the boil.

Thanks

When using a ball valve in a keggle a dip tube is needs to be installed. Do a quick search here to find various designs. There are a million different ways to make one work for your set-up so just take a look and see what's right for you. With a dip tube properly installed you can get all that sweet sweet barley water out of the keg and into the fermentor.

Ahh, those are what they are called. I have a rigged one that I can explain pretty easy.

It's basically a crescent shaped copper tube with many slits in it that comes down from the valve and sits on the bottom. I cover the tube with stainless steel mesh. It works great for keeping particles.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to try testing it one more time to see if I may have overlooked something.

The problem with your design is that the slits will prevent a siphon from occuring, so you still wouldn't get the wort below the manifold. Just form a piece of copper like you have (curving downward), but with no slits, and shove a SS scrubie under the end

Merlyn77 said:

Ahh, those are what they are called. I have a rigged one that I can explain pretty easy.

It's basically a crescent shaped copper tube with many slits in it that comes down from the valve and sits on the bottom. I cover the tube with stainless steel mesh. It works great for keeping particles.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to try testing it one more time to see if I may have overlooked something.

Click to expand...

You will also want to attach a tube of some kind to the valve on the outside of the kettle. The wort will only flow out until it reaches the level of the valve without an extension downward to at least the level of the bottom of the keg. It is essentially a siphon and cannot drain below the valve without the extension as it will suck air at that level and the vacuum will be broken.

Trubadour said:

The problem with your design is that the slits will prevent a siphon from occuring, so you still wouldn't get the wort below the manifold. Just form a piece of copper like you have (curving downward), but with no slits, and shove a SS scrubie under the end

Click to expand...

This is what I do exactly. Picked up a giant pack of like 10 at Sams Club.

Catt22 said:

You will also want to attach a tube of some kind to the valve on the outside of the kettle. The wort will only flow out until it reaches the level of the valve without an extension downward to at least the level of the bottom of the keg. It is essentially a siphon and cannot drain below the valve without the extension as it will suck air at that level and the vacuum will be broken.

Click to expand...

This is what I finally discovered last brew day to be exact. I was always getting suction when draining wort from Keggle to fermenter with my hose attached, but when just draining sparge water straight from the spigot, I never got below the valve. This advice would have been golden about 3 weeks ago

Thank you all very much for the information!

That was very helpful and I'm going to do the work tonight.