How to add permanent volume markings to a kettle (illustrated)

[dlaramie08]

Here's my other kettle.


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[Hello]

Palmer said it's ok... I trust him

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There was a reddit post on reasons not to do this. If I can find the link, I'll post it

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I trust Palmer over some dude on Reddit.

 

[Jsslack]

I like the roman numerals.

 

[Perzellbrewing]

There was a reddit post on reasons not to do this. If I can find the link, I'll post it

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That reddit article was discussed earlier in the thread (page 6 or so). Anyways, Palmer (who is a Metallurgical Engineer) said it is not an issue. See this post:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/how-add-permanent-volume-markings-kettle-illustrated-463099/index6.html#post5958597

 

[TheZymurgist]

got it work with a fresh battery and new different wiring. Made a test run on my lid... This is going to be fun. Kettle is up next.

fify:

 

[diodeart]

I am so subscribed to this. Awesome.

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[Sleepyemt]

fify:

Bwahaha, awesome


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[jaydog2314]

fify:

HEY NOW! :cross:

 

[pablosbrewing]

Electricity is a lazy creature. It takes the path of least resistance. It u become that path, ot will hit u. MaxOut, sir, a car battery has the "potential" to kill u. Thats all electricity is anyway is "potential energy". Given the right condition your heart can be stopped@ .75mA. Now, it is unlikely and using a battery charger u do have a breaker in line. Take a meter and check the resistance of your body vs the voltage and amperage of the battery and you should come up with the actual numbers. Look up ohms law for ur answer.

Human body internal resistance is 300 to 1000 Ohms
Human body dry skin resistance is 1000 to 100,000 Ohms

12V across 300 Ohms = 4mA
Cardiac arrest can occur at 75mA

I work with UL Listed products and anything below these voltages are considered intrinsically safe:

• 30V AC
• 42.4V DC

Worst case with wet skin your body is about 300 Ohms so at 12V that will give you 4mA, well below the 75mA cardiac arrrest value.

Etch on in safety

 

[snowtires]

Well that sounds no fun at all. I'm going to try mine soon but instead of a 9v battery I will probably use 220 with 30 amps. I'll let you know how it turns out

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[BeerGrylls]

Well that sounds no fun at all. I'm going to try mine soon but instead of a 9v battery I will probably use 220 with 30 amps. I'll let you know how it turns out

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Hey that way, you could brew and etch at the same time!

 

[smizak]

Well that sounds no fun at all. I'm going to try mine soon but instead of a 9v battery I will probably use 220 with 30 amps. I'll let you know how it turns out

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DUH IT WON'T WORK WITH AC DONT YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ELECTRICITY!

I kid.

I just used a light slurry of table salt and Starsan with a 9VDC wall cube as a supply. Worked great on my aluminum kettle.

 

[dlaramie08]

Well that sounds no fun at all. I'm going to try mine soon but instead of a 9v battery I will probably use 220 with 30 amps. I'll let you know how it turns out

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Bam take it up a notch.


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[dlaramie08]

Double post.

 

[GotPushrods]

DUH IT WON'T WORK WITH AC DONT YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ELECTRICITY!

I kid.

I just used a light slurry of table salt and Starsan with a 9VDC wall cube as a supply. Worked great on my aluminum kettle.

Nothing a bridge rectifier can't fix. I'm sure it will be fine! :cross:

 

[ChuckO]

Human body internal resistance is 300 to 1000 Ohms
Human body dry skin resistance is 1000 to 100,000 Ohms

12V across 300 Ohms = 4mA
Cardiac arrest can occur at 75mA

I work with UL Listed products and anything below these voltages are considered intrinsically safe:

• 30V AC
• 42.4V DC

Worst case with wet skin your body is about 300 Ohms so at 12V that will give you 4mA, well below the 75mA cardiac arrrest value.

Etch on in safety

I agree with your conclusions, but 12V with 300 ohms yields 40 ma, not 4 ma.

 

[pablosbrewing]

I agree with your conclusions, but 12V with 300 ohms yields 40 ma, not 4 ma.

Thanks for the correction

Damn decimal sit still!

 

[RADMAD]

Thanks for the great Saturday project. Here is how mine turned out.

 

[sablesurfer]

I know it is late in the thread, but hopefully someone will have an answer. Isn't everyone here measuring their pots with cold water? Boiling water will have more volume won't it? Does that matter here? How do you account for it?

 

[GotPushrods]

I know it is late in the thread, but hopefully someone will have an answer. Isn't everyone here measuring their pots with cold water? Boiling water will have more volume won't it? Does that matter here? How do you account for it?

You just have to choose one and know what you've done. I calibrate with approx 70*F water. I take the exact water temp, look up the density, and calculate how many grams of water per gallon.

I then put my pitcher on the scale and measure out a gallon at at time. In my case, 3778 grams each time. I think the most important thing is just to be consistent and be aware of what's going on. If my post-boil target is 11 gallons, I know I'm actually looking for just shy of 11.5 before chilling.

 

[dlaramie08]

I know it is late in the thread, but hopefully someone will have an answer. Isn't everyone here measuring their pots with cold water? Boiling water will have more volume won't it? Does that matter here? How do you account for it?

I really doubt that margin of error will make a difference in our volumes. Possibly if we were dealing with hectoliters. I know I'm not worried about that much error in my beer.


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[mtnagel]

And don't forget we are calibrating with water, but wort is more dense, so that helps in the direction we want, making our error less wrong.

 

[Keith66]

1 gallon of cold water = 1 gallon of boiling water = 1 gallon of boiling wort = 1 gallon of tepid monkey whiz as long as you're measuring volume and not weight. Stick to volume and leave density out of it. K.I.S.S.

 

[masonsjax]

One gallon of cold wort will occupy more volume when it reaches boiling point.

 

[ChuckO]

Since the volume of the pot will increase as the pot gets hotter it will make only a very small difference.

 

[Huaco]

I have calibrated sight glasses on my kettles. I can tell you for certain that there is an increase in volume as the water gets hotter. It is somewhere around 4 percent once you get up toward boiling temperatures. at that point it is adding about one half of a gallon total volume in that kettle.

 

[PackerfaninSanDiego]

for all you anal brewers that did this etching with the 1/8" lines.....is your level at the top or bottom of the line, or is it at the bottom of the number.?Just asking as some of you are now worried about the level at boil temp, or temp out of the faucet. And you had better do your etching after you add all your valves, sight glasses, thermometers as it will change the volume.

 

[sablesurfer]

for all you anal brewers that did this etching with the 1/8" lines.....is your level at the top or bottom of the line, or is it at the bottom of the number.?Just asking as some of you are now worried about the level at boil temp, or temp out of the faucet. And you had better do your etching after you add all your valves, sight glasses, thermometers as it will change the volume.

LOL!

No, this is very serious to those of us that you all don't understand!!!


Talking with a friend last night as I was doing my one gallon increments. He was like (being a mechanic), "you know you can just measure them now and..."

I cut him off, but what about all the ports and fixtures and stuff, those will throw it off.

Which is when I had to breath, and realize at most it's a couple of ounces of liquid filling in the ports.

 

[Keith66]

for all you anal brewers that did this etching with the 1/8" lines.....is your level at the top or bottom of the line, or is it at the bottom of the number.?Just asking as some of you are now worried about the level at boil temp, or temp out of the faucet. And you had better do your etching after you add all your valves, sight glasses, thermometers as it will change the volume.

+1 How many of you start out by adding boiling water or wort to your pot? And exactly how much do you boil off? And what about the cold water you add to your carboy after chilling the wort to top it off to 5.5 gallons? And how accurate are the measurements on your carboy? And how do you p!ss into the wind without getting wet? Geez people!!!

 

[mattd2]

for all you anal brewers that did this etching with the 1/8" lines.....is your level at the top or bottom of the line, or is it at the bottom of the number.?Just asking as some of you are now worried about the level at boil temp, or temp out of the faucet. And you had better do your etching after you add all your valves, sight glasses, thermometers as it will change the volume.

Great idea! Mark the kettle with varying thickness of lines, bottom for cold and top for hot.
OCD?

 

[finsfan]

Quick question. Could I use the below alarm clock cord (plugged in) for doing this? My first thought is no, but I dont know much about electricity so I wanted to make sure.

 

[hunter_le five]

awesome thread, thanks for posting. Subscribed.

 

[WI_Wino]

Quick question. Could I use the below alarm clock cord (plugged in) for doing this? My first thought is no, but I dont know much about electricity so I wanted to make sure.

No. you want an AC to DC adapter, ideally 12 V output or below IMO. And small amount of amps. As an example my laptop power cord spits out 20V DC and 4.6 amps. I would be hesitant to use that. ~5 amps can be quite the shock.

Personally with the recent time change you should have some 9 volts batteries laying around (smoke detector change), I would just use those old batteries if you haven't thrown them out.

The one in your picture is "AC to AC" and it doesn't specify the output voltage so I would most definitely not use it.

 

[Bezel]

With cav sabers on the bottom


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[BeerGrylls]

With cav sabers on the bottomView attachment 186571


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Wow that came out really good. cheers.

 

[pelipen]

for all you anal brewers that did this etching with the 1/8" lines.....is your level at the top or bottom of the line, or is it at the bottom of the number.?Just asking as some of you are now worried about the level at boil temp, or temp out of the faucet. And you had better do your etching after you add all your valves, sight glasses, thermometers as it will change the volume.

I'm that anal. I did all my measurements based on the bottom of the line. I marked with pencil where I would measure a meniscus in the lab. Why? Because I care a lot about precision, but not so much about accuracy. So my measurements are based on ambient, because that's all I care about. At boiling I can subtract wort expansion.

Even if it's irrelevant, I like to be anal.
The ball valve barely registers a change in the line level. It's far, far more likely my burner and deck aren't as level as the floor where I measured. I also used a level

My personal gallon is a container I measured by weight on a scale I believe is accurate. So everything I have is with reference to that standard and should be precise, even if it's not an accurate 1 gallon. But really, I don't care, beer comes out the other side.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Add some food coloring to your vinegar.........Blue for cold water levels, red for hot water levels...........

 

[CountryGravy]

Yes! I can't wait to try this!

Thank you SO much for this post!

 

[RacingRam]

What about splitting the difference between boiling and room temp by using hot tap water to measure? I think my hot tap water is about 135, so it's a little closer to room temp. I would guess that the rate of volume change probably isn't linear though, right?


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[bradpoff]

You're right…touch that 9 volt battery to an exposed heart and you'll get immediate ventricular fibrillation. Hopefully THAT isn't going to happen very often!!

^^^^^^^
It only takes a few Miliamps across the heart to disrupt the rythm of its beat... That's not a lot.