Making a Boil kettle out of a sanke.

[AHammer16]

I am in the process of making a boil kettle out of a sanke 15.5 gallon stainless. Yesterday i cut out the top, what a friggin pain in the butt! I just ordered the stainless weldless ball valve from northern along with the bazooka T and the sanke adapter. Any body have experiance with doing this? Any thing I should watch for?

 

[vtfan99]

This past summer I did exactly what you're doing, although I had someone take a torch to the top. What did you do to get the top off?

After the torch, I had to use an angle grinder to clean up the cut. Next time I will use a cutting wheel with the grinder and bypass the torch all together.

To install the weldless kit, I grabbed a 7/8" hole saw bit from Lowes and used my cordless drill to make the hole. I screwed the weldless kit down nice and tight and have had no leaks yet. It seems to work extremely well.

 

[AHammer16]

This past summer I did exactly what you're doing, although I had someone take a torch to the top. What did you do to get the top off?

After the torch, I had to use an angle grinder to clean up the cut. Next time I will use a cutting wheel with the grinder and bypass the torch all together.

To install the weldless kit, I grabbed a 7/8" hole saw bit from Lowes and used my cordless drill to make the hole. I screwed the weldless kit down nice and tight and have had no leaks yet. It seems to work extremely well.

I used a sawzall w/ a metal cutting blade. wow was that 3 hours of headache. The swazall doesnot follow a curve very well w/ a wide blade on it. Next time it will be a plasma torch.

What do you have inside the kettle?

 

[kneemoe]

I used a sawzall w/ a metal cutting blade. wow was that 3 hours of headache. The swazall doesnot follow a curve very well w/ a wide blade on it. Next time it will be a plasma torch.

What do you have inside the kettle?

wow, mark another one for the angle grinder with cut-offs, a whopping 20 minutes and you should be on your way to the grinding disk to clean up the ragged cut.....
inside the kettle? wort
you dont have to line the kettle(keg) or anything, that's half the point - do you mean for the spicket? that all just cranks down (tightens down & crunches a gasket of sorts) or you can have something welded up (and whoever welds SS knows what to charge for it, ouch)

 

[Brewiz]

I used a high speed grinder with a zizz wheel and a step bit for the 7/8 hole. The Step bit is expensive but worth it.

 

[vtfan99]

What do you have inside the kettle?

A friend of mine gave me a stainless steel drain tube and a compression fitting that I attached to the inside of the weldless kit. I have yet to get a false bottom. Right now I either use a hop bag or just run the whole mess through a strainer before it goes in the fermenter. The ball valve has yet to get clogged. Im using pellet hops, btw.

 

[TheCheatOSX]

I'm preparing to do this as well. Keep the idea's coming. No More Boilovers!