Upgraded my all-grain equipment

[lhommedieu]

These are the latest upgrades to my all-grain system:

1. Had Blichmann thermometer, ball valve, and sight glass welded to my brew pot.
2. Installed same in weldless versions to my lauter tun.
3. Installed thermometer to my mash tun.
4. Built a two-tier beer stand for the above.

It was a beautiful day for brewing and believe it or not, not a single leaf or acorn touched the wort. Having thermometers on all three containers made temperature regulation a breeze.

I plan to resize the stand for the lauter tun to make it lower, and purchase a 10 gallon mash tun from the Big Orange Store for larger batches. And oh, yeah, a pump system because getting up on those ladders is getting to be a chore. But all in all, I'm pretty happy with this simple system.

 

[stevehardt]

Damn nice looking system. You did good. I must confess I'm a little jealous!

 

[lhommedieu]

Thanks. A labor of love and mostly (except for the welding) diy. The welding got done because I drilled one of the holes in my brew pot too large and the damned thing started to leak, lol. Then I got the hot water tun a while back and when I filled it up to check my work on the ball valve and thermometer, it turned out there was a minute pin-hole close to the bottom of the pot due to a manufacturing error. I hadn't planned on adding a sight tube but fortunately it was just far enough from the bottom and not too close to the valve to drill a hole - so now I have a sight tube. The moments just after I saw that thin stream of water jut out the hole were not pretty, however, if you happened to be a casual observer in my back yard.

I am proud of the thermometer install on my mash tun, however. It's one of the few times that I've judged myself to be mechanically competent. Of course, I ruined a mash tun teaching myself to get that way, lol.