Moving to all grain, never mashed in a kettle before.

[Goat_Nutz]

I have done about 6 extract brews, and 3 all grain. The all grain where done with my cousin in his Cooler/Tun. I have recently come into 3 SS kegs, which i plan on converting to kettles. Having said that i have never mashed in a kettle before and am a little worried that i might mess things up. I plan on making a 3 tier system with propane burners on all three tiers. The kegs are 15.5 SS, i think they might be sanke im not 100% on that. My brother is a welder and he is going to weld ports in the kegs for me. So on to the questions.

1. How hard is it to keep the temps in a 15.5 gallon SS keg doing 5 gallon batches? 10 gallon batches?
2. How much temp drop can i expect in a SS keggle? Living in southern MN, spring time brewing?
3. Is there a chance that i can burn the bottom of the grain bed? i would think that the bottom part, right over the flame would be hotter than the top.
4. Is there a huge differance in 5 and 10 gallon batches?
5. Is a sight tube really worth the extra work?

Sorry if this has been covered 23942398748723 times, new to brewing and to the site.

 

[h22lude]

It has been covered a lot so read, read and read some more. There are 1,000 different ways to use a sanke keg as a mash tun. Also check out homebrewertalk.com. Gary has gone over his set up a few times in detail.


1. How hard is it to keep the temps in a 15.5 gallon SS keg doing 5 gallon batches? 10 gallon batches?
Put some water heater insulation around it and it will only drop a degree or two over an hour

2. How much temp drop can i expect in a SS keggle? Living in southern MN, spring time brewing?
Look at question 1

3. Is there a chance that i can burn the bottom of the grain bed? i would think that the bottom part, right over the flame would be hotter than the top.
You don't need to heat the mash tun. Just insulate it and you will be fine. But no you will not burn it if you do it correctly.

4. Is there a huge differance in 5 and 10 gallon batches?
About 5 gallons. I don't really know what this means

5. Is a sight tube really worth the extra work?
It depends on if you like it or not. A sight tube helps you determine how much liquid is in the keg just by looking on the outside at the markings you made. It isn't much work if you have the right tools.