55 gallon level sight glass - ideas?

My 55 gallon (1.5bbl) system is taking shape and I'm looking for a way to measure the amount taken from the HLT to the mash tun. I was thinking about a sight glass in the HLT, but cant find anything that large. Anyone got any leads or methods to make something that big? I am leaning towards just stretching a clear tubing from the drain to the top and marking it with gallon marks.

A tubing barb elbow out the side and silicon tubing run up the side of the keg???

Yup, what he said. I have one for my 15 gallon Sanke fermenter. Although right now it's missing a part.

Yeah, I have a piece of tubing on my keggle HLT too. I'm looking for something more permanent for a larger vessel. This drum level sight glass is close, but only 22" long (intended for drum laying horizontally). I'll need it to be longer than that for my 55 gallon system. If this was longer I'd buy it now.

After giving it some thought, I just went ahead and bough the above pictured sight glass. I realized I can still use it without it covering the whole height (whole volume) of the HLT. See, for mashing, I know I'll need a specific volume of water, for my grain to water ratio. My batches will need roughly 35gallons strike water, so the sight glass will only need to cover that range. I fill the HLT to 35 gallons, heat to temp, then add to mash when ready. After taking the strike water, the HLT will be empty, so I'd have to fill up again and re-heat for the sparge, again to whatever volume I need. So this sight glass can cover basically the top 2/3 of the barrel volume and I'll be good. Anyone see any flaws in my logic? I hope not cause I already ordered the sucker!

Thanks... Pangea

any pics of your 55 gallon setup? or any 55 gallon setups, I want to brew that big but I need Ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pangea
I will be needing a sight glass for my rig so please post your end results
thanks

Pangea hard to tell by looking at it but could you use a compression fitting an attach two of the site glasses you ordered together making 1 big one?

Pangea said:

My 55 gallon (1.5bbl) system is taking shape and I'm looking for a way to measure the amount taken from the HLT to the mash tun. I was thinking about a sight glass in the HLT, but cant find anything that large. Anyone got any leads or methods to make something that big? I am leaning towards just stretching a clear tubing from the drain to the top and marking it with gallon marks.

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Just join two shorter pieces using a union.

I think the idea of silicone tubing stretched between two elbow/bulkheads is a fine idea. You can also get polycarbonate in up to 8' lengths. If you really want glass, 1/2" compression fitting does well with 12.7mm SIMAX tubing if you replace the metal ferrule with about 3 silicone orings.

Bobby_M said:

I think the idea of silicone tubing stretched between two elbow/bulkheads is a fine idea. You can also get polycarbonate in up to 8' lengths. If you really want glass, 1/2" compression fitting does well with 12.7mm SIMAX tubing if you replace the metal ferrule with about 3 silicone orings.

Click to expand...

Thanks Bobby. You've always got great insight into some of these custom fab issues.

I'm going to see what the 22" sight glass looks like and if it can be extended or partially replaced to be a longer unit. I may just leave it as is and use for measuring volumes in my HLT between 15 to 50 gallons. 22" sight glass on a 55 gallon drum works out to about 35 gallon range. Again, I'd just fill up to the strike amount I need, heat to temp, then add to mash. Next step fill with sparge water needed, heat to temp, and so on. for 40 gallon batches, I'll need more than 55 gallons water anyway, so there will be at least 2 iterations of filling the HLT.

For those who asked, here's what this is being used on: (The orange thing on the middle drum is a 240V external drum heater for maintaining mash temps)

You probably already checked, but....

http://www.mcmaster.com/#sight-glass-tubing

JKoravos said:

You probably already checked, but....

http://www.mcmaster.com/#sight-glass-tubing

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Yep - saw that. Just too expensive for those valves. The glass would be nice in a custom job like what others have talked about earlier in the thread. I looked around but couldn't find another fitting to use on the ends of the glass tube that can use the protective rods. That would be sweet. I just dont want to spent 200 bucks on a set of bronze globe valves just for a sight glass.

There's a real easy way to build a replica of the same system without valves. Build something like my sight glass kit with the compression fitting and you could use a hose clamp around the compression nut to hold some 1/2" x 1/8" square bar stock parallel to the glass tube as protection. You could also slot a piece of metal tubing and have it fit over the compression nut also.