Lighted sight glass for my HLT

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maplemontbrew

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I'm sure there is probably no such thing, but I'm trying to figure out a way to better see my water levels while sparging. I read in another post where someone put a small float ball in the sight glass. Currently, I'm using a small cheap clip on light.

Amy suggestions appreciated!
 
I like the idea of a little ball float, or maybe a piece of cylindrical foam float
 
.22 airsoft ball? No idea if it's food safe. I've always thought about mounting an LED to the top to end-light the polycarbonate but never got around to trying it. Just don't make an air seal.
 
As much sense as it often makes, I still laughed at the subject line 'cuz it hits too close to home.

My Blingmanns have their very nice sight gauges but honestly the etched markings are so faint I'd need to be 40 years younger to make them out easily. As it is it takes readers about four inches away ;)

Even if I somehow got a ball to float in there the reference marks would still be the issue...

Cheers!
 
I'm sure there is probably no such thing, but I'm trying to figure out a way to better see my water levels while sparging. I read in another post where someone put a small float ball in the sight glass. Currently, I'm using a small cheap clip on light.

Amy suggestions appreciated!

In the same vein, maybe try mounting a laser pointer down the barrel of the sight.
 
I use a paper clip to mark the specific number I'm looking for.


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I was once looking at some hollow stainless sphere floats at McMaster. Seemed like they would probably work. Always meant to add one to my next order and then forgot.
 
If you do use a small ball float, you'll need to insert a stainless washer between the elbow (or whatever fitting you use) going into the kettle and the sight gauge so make the opening a bit smaller, otherwise that ball will get sucked into the kettle when the water gets lower. Just pull the glass (plastic) tube out of the fitting and drop a stainless washer in it then place the tube back in.

I had a bit of a hard time seeing my water level when the background is stainless steel from the kettle. What I did was I fed out a long length of white P-Touch label (just kept pushing the feed button until I got the length I need) and stuck it to the back of the sight glass to give me a white background. Is it perfect? No, does it help, to me it helped a bit and best of all, didn't cost a thing since I already had a P-Touch.
 
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