Mason Jar Sight Glass Harvester

I wanted to do something different besides transferring my harvested yeast from my sight glass or triclover spool so I made up an adapter for a mason jar. It is basically a ss disk that I drilled out with a hole saw and then punched out a 1.5" hole. Then silver soldered a triclover ferrule into it. I cut the gasket from a sheet of silicone to make sure the plate sealed tight to the mason jar. I'll put up more pictures up once I get the trub harvested off and have it in pieces so it's easier to understand, but I was too psyched to try it out!

That is really neat. Is there a place for the air to escape out of the jar when being filled?

Right now the air just goes up into the fermenter as the yeast/beer drops into the jar. Plan is to have a few jars full of boiled water to connect up which will minimize air transferred into the beer. Right now when the air goes up into the fermenter it does loosen some of the accumulated yeast at the bottom of the cone so it is somewhat helpful getting more down into the jar, but I'd still rather minimize air into finished beer.

You could always fill the mason jar with CO2 to get the same effects without the possibility of oxidation. Very cool!

Here are a few more shots of the pieces and how the ferrule is soldered to the plate. The gasket was just cut out of sheet stock silicone from Grainger. There is supposedly ss mason jar tops out there that would make this even easier, but I haven't been able to find them.

This is awesome!!

Awsome

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You win the internets. This just saved me from buying a 1-1/2" TC sight glass to harvest yeast with.

Have you experimented with various sized jars?

Everything from the half pints shown above to the quart size have worked. I was a bit worried about the quart ones since you are hanging 2# off the screw lid connection but luckily have had no issues. I did a dry run and cranked down on the jar and gave it some pretty good tugs and turns and wasn't able to pop the threaded band off the jar so that made me feel a bit better.

I would love to find a source of ss lids to solder the ferrule to so there was no need to make the gasket and less worries of fewer threads being engaged on the jar due to the plate and gasket thickness.

I'm going to make a 2" TC one for the wide mouth jars for myself and a buddy with a 60 gallon inductor tank to try with the half gallon jars, but plan on supporting the jar when it's in use.

Both good ideas. I'll post here if I find a better lid.

I have been doing the same thing but paid $70 for a local welding place to tig weld the fitting onto a piece of 16 guage ss.

I'd love to have a few more, but not for that price. I found that the 2.5" tri-clover fittings are about the exact diameter of the lid of a wide mouth Ball/Kerr mason jar. So, I ordered a 2.5" tri-clover cap from brewers hardware to see if it would fit as a lid, since they only cost $4 or so. Voila, it fit perfect, (ok, not perfect, you have to be careful screwing the band down to make sure the threads bite, but pretty darn good). I was so excited I got back on their website to order a 2.5" to 1.5" cap style reducer and they don't carry them. I wanted one so bad I called them and asked. Nope.

Anyone out there find a 2.5" to 1.5" cap style reducer please share.

A lid from a blender will fit a mason jar. just pop out the blade assembly and insert the ss triclove fitting

Bigdaddyale said:

A lid from a blender will fit a mason jar. just pop out the blade assembly and insert the ss triclove fitting

Click to expand...

I wonder how universal that size of blender collar connectors are..

Ahhh I like the way you think.

I have a Hamilton beach blender that fits regular mouth jars. It might allow me to screw down the 2" tri clover cap. I already ground mine way down though so it would be thinner (diameter is fine it's just too thick).

What we really need is somewhere that sells 2.5" to 1.5" cap style reducers for a fair price. The 2.5" side fits the mouth of a wide mouth jar perfectly and with that you can use the standard canning band to secure it, and they make half gallon wide mouth canning jars which fills about a third of the way up with yeast (on a five gallon batch) and leaves you with a crystal clear viewing window for the extent of your fermentation.

Artifishal said:

What we really need is somewhere that sells 2.5" to 1.5" cap style reducers for a fair price. The 2.5" side fits the mouth of a wide mouth jar perfectly and with that you can use the standard canning band to secure it, and they make half gallon wide mouth canning jars which fills about a third of the way up with yeast (on a five gallon batch) and leaves you with a crystal clear viewing window for the extent of your fermentation.

Click to expand...

Artifishal, was wondering if this might be what you are looking for

http://www.glaciertanks.com/End_Cap_Reducers-End_Cap_Reducer_2_1_2_T_x_1_1_2_Reducer_SS304.html

if it is it will make your idea simpler. Looking to add this to my 14.5 gal stout tank ss fermentor. Will keep an eye on this, Thanks David.

That's it exactly. I've contemplated ordering from them several times but haven't pulled the trigger because they want something like $17 for shipping.

On a side note. I pulled this off yesterday. I'm planning to brew another batch and use this yeast today. Should I...

1: Make a starter with it?
2: Just shake it up and use my mr. Malty app to calculate how much slurry I need?
3: carefully ladle out a scoop and pitch that?

( I've done 1 and 2 with success, but recently purchased a small ss ladle so I could "top crop")

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1431862729.071708.jpg

I decided to go with number 3. Mr.malty said to go with 70 ml if using vials. That's about a quarter cup which is the exact size of my ladle. I carefully scooped out a heaping scoop of creamy, humus-like yeast, put it down in the conical and vigorously stirred.

Mr.malty called for 98 ml of slurry, but I'm thinking what I scooped out was more like what's in the vials than just a slurry.

Thoughts?