BIAB eKeggle build help

[spott]

I'm looking into moving into all grain, and brew in a bag seems like the cheaper way to do this, especially considering I'm living in a condo and space is at a premium.

Towards this end, I'm going to attempt to convert a 1/2 barrel keg that I have acquired into an electric Keggle.

I have a few questions however:

* It is a rubberized keg (coated in black rubber all around), I figure that this won't be an issue for an electric system (I'll test to see if the rubber melts from boiling water, but I doubt it), but does anyone have any experience with these?

* I have seen a few "upside down" keggle builds, but not enough to understand what the disadvantages are (I assume there is a bunch of dead volume around the element, which might be an issue, but other than that? Any ideas to figure out beforehand how much dead volume?). I was going to do this (so I can drain into the fermenter trivially), but I wanted to make sure there isn't some reason not to.

* When making the large hole in the bottom of the keg (top of the keggle), how do I have a lid (to retain heat), but still have a large enough opening (and smooth enough) to prevent snags when trying to remove the bag? Is it better to cut around the outside (essentially removing the whole bottom, including the handles), or to cut out the inside and make a lip for a lid.

* I'm hoping that this setup will allow me to do all grain brewing for a while, and I would rather not grow out of it really soon. Is there anything that I'm going to find really frustrating about this? I know that the bag is going to be annoying to deal with, but I'm ok with that.

Thanks for the help!

 

[vraftsman]

I haven't much input on the other things but for cutting a hole for the lid, I left the handles on and cut the inner portion. I just used an old glass cooking pot lid, the larger you can find the better of course, use that to mark the size for the hole in the keggle. Use an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel, take it slow and leave a quarter inch or more extra on the inside of your mark. Then once the bulk of the metal is removed, switch to a grinding wheel and go at it from the edge of the metal. It's easier to control your depth this way than to make a smooth cut from the face with the cutoff wheel. Once you have a good circle cut almost to your mark, keep trying to fit the lid into the opening and make little tweaks here and there until it seats just right. Switch the disc one more time to a 120grit flap wheel, and go around the edge from all angles. This will easily smooth the edges without removing a lot of material as long as you don't really go at it hard.