Keg to brew kettle/hlt

[philelmes]

Hi all. Am i missing something here?! Im converting some poor looking old kegs into some new brewing kettles. One hlt, one boiler and possibly one mash tun.

My question is, is there a reason for not having the outlet come out the underside? All the boilers ive seen have the outlet straight out the side. There will be a massive amount of dead space once drained. I was planning on having a false bottom and possibly a valve between the outet and tap, to avoid a dead space in the pipe whilst boiling.

Any advise will be good.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Lots of folks do bottom drain keggles...I would think Bobby M at brewhardware.com has what you need.

 

[iijakii]

I think the reason you don't see bottom-drain too often is people are used to propane rigs. Plus it's easier to have a flat bottom set down on any table etc. That said, bottom-drain is awesome and I wish I had one. Go for it.

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

There are great advantages to bottom drain - you can recover all liquid in the kettle, it makes CIP ridiculously easy, etc. The downside - you can't whirlpool, and you have to either raise the keg up on a stand, or cut a hole in your table to clear the drain line.

With a side-port keg, most everyone uses a dip tube that, depending on placement, can get nearly all of the liquid out of the vessel via the syphon action.

 

[PapaFoxtrot]

There are great advantages to bottom drain - you can recover all liquid in the kettle, it makes CIP ridiculously easy, etc. The downside - you can't whirlpool, and you have to either raise the keg up on a stand, or cut a hole in your table to clear the drain line.

With a side-port keg, most everyone uses a dip tube that, depending on placement, can get nearly all of the liquid out of the vessel via the syphon action.

This just triggered a thought. I'm planning bottle drain keggles and was thinking of adding a side port to leave deadspace for the cold break to accumulate. It just occurred to me, why not whirlpool, allow the trub to settle and then drain off about a 1/2 gallon to waste. The remainder would then go to the fermenter.

 

[philelmes]

Im planning on adding a grill over the outlet to strain the wort. Could i then whirlpool?

 

[kh54s10]

Im planning on adding a grill over the outlet to strain the wort. Could i then whirlpool?

I don't whirlpool but as I understand it you rotate the wort and all the trub collects in a cone in the center of the pot. You then drain from the side leaving the trub. If your valve is in the center of the bottom you will get all the trub. If you tried to drain the trub first I would think you would lose too much wort. Or in the case of a strainer, it would probably clog up.

 

[philelmes]

Wouldnt it be the same for a side exit? Tube goes in, drops 90° to pick up and syphon all the wort out the center. Id still put a false bottom in.

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

I've messed with all kinds of hop tacos and trub strainers and they have all clogged and pissed me off. I just deal with the trub - I don't whirlpool, and the rest will settle out in the fermenter. What I would do if I were to do it again is have the bottom drain as described, with a side outlet for drawing off wort. Then you whirlpool, allow the cone to form in the center, and then drain off the side - the dip tube doesn't have to go all the way to the center, and in this case, it wouldn't.

Then you get all the benefits of the center drain, without the drawbacks I mentioned earlier.