Could I make a keggle out of this style of keg?

[msa8967]

Found a "keg stool" on craig's list where a guy made a rotating stool mounted on top of a keg. I am wondering if this is the right style of keg to make into a keggle. The keggles I have seen have been more of a uniform cylinder.

http://iowacity.craigslist.org/fuo/3124967260.html

 

[eastoak]

Found a "keg stool" on craig's list where a guy made a rotating stool mounted on top of a keg. I am wondering if this is the right style of keg to make into a keggle. The keggles I have seen have been more of a uniform cylinder.

http://iowacity.craigslist.org/fuo/3124967260.html

that will work and $25 is a bargain.

 

[msa8967]

It looks like the top will need to be cut out and I don't have the tools to do so. I was thinking of trying to find a local welding guy through the barter system of craig's list but I don't think I can pay him in homebrew.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[eastoak]

i cut mine in 20 min with a 4 inch angle grinder, then went with weld-less fittings for a while, eventually got them welded which i recommend.

 

[ghack]

I cut mine in 5 with an angle grinder and a homemade jig. Check the archives, there are a number of good designs posted on the forum.

 

[starsailor]

Here's how I did mine. No welding necessary and all parts available at the HW store and LHBS.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56069029@N06/5185824147/in/photostream/

I started with a 15.5gal Hoff-Stevens keg from the a defunct Carling brewery, but the concept is the same.

BTW, I really like the style for a BK better than a Sanke because the curved sides near the top make it a lot harder to boil over. The foam up from a boil just seams to curve back down into center of the boil without boiling over. I think the shape near flame helps too.

Good luck!

 

[msa8967]

One more question about this project. Just in case the keg is not fully empty, can this residual beer damage the ss interior given enough time and high temps of summer?

 

[phenry]

I really doubt it. The keg I got for my MLT had a sticker on it dated June '02, and it really looked like it had been sitting around outside for 10 years. The inside was completely clean, albeit horribly smelly from all the old beer.

 

[brewingmeister]

Whatever is leftover won't hurt anything. It's a coors keg btw.

Fwiw I find converted kegs heavy and a pain to clean ymmv.

 

[eastoak]

there are lots of tutorials on how to do this job but basically you: push the ball down with a screwdriver/nail to depressurize, get the retaining ring off, pull the spear out, dump the smelly contents, fill part way with water, grind the top off, sand the burrs off of the now super sharp edge, drill holes, install valves/diptube and you are done. i have a top tier stand and i lift the empty keg up/down from the top burner with no problem, i'm 5' 8" 160lb. at $25 you have yourself the next cheapest 15.5 gal kettle possible (obviously a free keg would have been cheaper) and it will be way more durable than a blichmann which might cave in if you sat on it's side like you will when you drill the holes in the keg.

 

[phoenixs4r]

Make sure the guy didn't fill it with concrete to make it more sturdy. There's a bunch of those around here but they fill them with concrete and ruin them.

 

[msa8967]

Just got back from looking at this and he had put concrete in the keg to prevent it from tipping over. I thought $25 was too good of a price.

 

[eastoak]

Just got back from looking at this and he had put concrete in the keg to prevent it from tipping over. I thought $25 was too good of a price.

wow, seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a stool.

 

[msa8967]

He said he did it for an art project in college.

 

[phoenixs4r]

wow, seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a stool.

Fill with water, dump in concrete mix, plug end and roll it under your foot for 5 minutes?

 

[eastoak]

Fill with water, dump in concrete mix, plug end and roll it under your foot for 5 minutes?

or pull up a chair?

 

[phoenixs4r]

or pull up a chair?

Ya but then its not a keg, lol.

 

[eastoak]

Ya but then its not a keg, lol.

good one

 

[IdahoVandal]

Thanks for this thread, folks, and thanks starsailor for the pics and info! Kegs are tough to come by in my neck of the woods, so I jumped on a couple of Hoff-Stevens kegs last fall (about $35 each) even though I worried about how to deal with the bungholes (heh). The stopper looks like a simple, inexpensive solution. Still working well?

Also, I have a few questions, starsailor, about your design: What's up with the copper manifold? It's to strain the wort, yes? How well does it work for you, and how does it impact trub loss? You're using a weldless fitting with the ball valve, yes?

Again, thanks for the info! I'm excited to get my kegs all converted.

 

[Schumed]

Here's how I did mine. No welding necessary and all parts available at the HW store and LHBS.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56069029@N06/5185824147/in/photostream/

I started with a 15.5gal Hoff-Stevens keg from the a defunct Carling brewery, but the concept is the same.

BTW, I really like the style for a BK better than a Sanke because the curved sides near the top make it a lot harder to boil over. The foam up from a boil just seams to curve back down into center of the boil without boiling over. I think the shape near flame helps too.

Good luck!

Interesting non welding concept...never seen that before...I would like to see more ....part list?

 

[starsailor]

The stopper looks like a simple, inexpensive solution. Still working well?

Stopper works like a champ! Never a drop leaked in 15-20 batches. I pull it out and give it a good scrubbing every 5 or so batches just for giggles and grins, otherwise I just clean inside faces of it like part of the inside of the keg. The boil makes everything nice and sanitary anyway. So, the objective on cleaning the keggle is to remove the big stuff and don't sweat the microscopic stuff.

Also, I have a few questions, starsailor, about your design: What's up with the copper manifold? It's to strain the wort, yes?

That's exactly what it does. I grow hops and use them 80% of the time, except when doing a brew requiring hops I don't grow. I should say it works great for whole cone hops because they settle to form a kind of filter bed of their own, kind like an old school hopback, but not too good for pelletized (ground up) hops. Pellet hops for the most part strain right thru the manifold and have plugged it up on one occasion when I used whole cone and pellet hops in the same batch.

How well does it work for you, and how does it impact trub loss?

I use an immersion chiller and stir up the best whirlpool my arm can muster. With whole cone hops it works quite well straining out the hot and cold break trub, think hopback again. Also notice that I have piece of SS strainer screening held to the manifold with a couple of zip ties across the dip tube slot of the bottom ring. This keeps all the hop cones and trub in the center dish away from the manifold in the outer ring. Also the hop cones that settle in the outer ring form a filter bed of sorts on top of the manifold to strain out the trub. With just pelletized hops in the batch, about half of the ground up hop particles and trub strain right thru the manifold. By trial and error I found that slots up works better on this manifold for straining out the trub than the normal slots down you'd use in a mash-tun manifold. I've measured this design at 2 cups deadspace with the manifold slots up. That's less than the wet hop cone and trub volume for most batches. So, there's zero to negligable wort loss from the keggle design itself and normal loss from the trub and wort the hops absorb.

I think this design works way better than similar setups on sanke keggles in both filtering out the hot and cold break trub and straining out whole cone hops while minimizing deadspace loss.

You're using a weldless fitting with the ball valve, yes?

Yes, it's a modified weldless kit set up. The only different part is the brass 3/8" compression to 1/2" MPT fitting on the inside of the keg that replaced the SS close nipple in a standard weldless kit.

 

[starsailor]

Interesting non welding concept...never seen that before...I would like to see more ....part list?

All the parts are listed in the descriptions of the photos the flickr page I linked in my post on page one of this thread. Start with a standard weldless ball valve kit and follow what I did in flickr. I've made 2 improvements since the flickr posts.

One, I cross drilled all the pressed fit copper manifold fittings with a 1/64" bit and bent a short piece of SS wire thru the holes, kind of like a cotter pin, to keep the manifold from coming apart should I whack it hard while stiring up a whirlpool.

Two, I added a 1/2" SS coupler and close nipple to extend the ball valve on the outside of the keg a little further away from the keg wall because of the burner design on the 3-tier brew tower I'm building. This was definitely not needed at all on my turkey fryer burner, although a heat shield may be needed for the ball valve on some turkey fryer burners. Note (to self and others) don't forget the teflon tape on the male threads going thru the keg wall on the weldless kit to avoid a nasty little leak thru the tapered pipe threads.