water meter

[RobP]

has anyone tried using an inline digital water meter to read volume into your kettle? My kettles has no water level markings

 

[day_trippr]

I use a Swissflow SF800 "digital" flow meter to measure RO water into my brew rig via an Arduino Mega and stop when the prescribed volume for a given recipe is reached. Typically in the 18 to 22 gallon range. It counters the fact that my RO system flows at just ~4 gallons per hour and rather than hold its hand for ~5 hours before shutting it off I built the Arduino to do it

But...all that would be overkill if filling much faster from a tap or hose, where a ruler and a bit of math would suffice...

Cheers!

 

[Cottonmouth]

I don't know anything about an inline digital water meter but here's an article about putting volume marks on kettles. Works good, I've done it a couple of times with an old laptop power supply.

https://byo.com/project/etch-your-kettle-projects/

 

[RobP]

Check out... Fill-O-Meter

 

[micraftbeer]

I just got one of these Kegland Fill-o-meter units to do a review. Haven't got all the fittings to hook it up yet, but working on it.

(I know, not really helpful...)

 

[IslandLizard]

Stick a ruler or a marked/notched dowel in your kettle while filling.
Height in inches > Volume in gallons.

 

[RobP]

I just got one of these Kegland Fill-o-meter units to do a review. Haven't got all the fittings to hook it up yet, but working on it.

(I know, not really helpful...)

Let me know what you think once you do a trial run. Thanks

 

[micraftbeer]

Had a 30 second trial before I had to shut down due to leaks from my fittings (not the Kegland unit). The nightmare is finding fittings that have a Garden Hose Thread that are lead free.

I've got GHT on my drinking water hoses from the wall spigot, and the hose I connect to the output of my 3-body filter. Combined with 3/4" NPT on the filter assembly, and 1/2" NPT on the Kegland unit. I've got more $ in stainless fittings than the price of the flow meter at this point... I'll get there eventually.

The unit seems well built and the interface seems good. I haven't read the manual yet, but you can start and stop the flow manually with button push, or you can program the amount of water you want and it will do that automatically.

 

[RobP]

sounds promising! set it and forget it. can do things like crush grain while it fills

 

[rnorman57]

Stick a ruler or a marked/notched dowel in your kettle while filling.
Height in inches > Volume in gallons.

The volume in gallons (height and diameter in inches)
= height x 3.14 x diameter^2 / 924

 

[matt_m]

I tried the Digiten one from Amazon and it was far too imprecise to be useful. One test fill of a 1 gallon pitcher it would only add 3 quarts, the next it would overflow.

 

[dan46nbrew]

I tried the Digiten one from Amazon and it was far too imprecise to be useful. One test fill of a 1 gallon pitcher it would only add 3 quarts, the next it would overflow.

Same experience with Digiten...

 

[dan46nbrew]

Just read a review on Morebeer about the Fill-o-meter. One person said it needs a pressure regulator in front of it to give accurate volumes. Maybe this is what the Digiten needs also.

 

[micraftbeer]

I finally got to play around with the Fill-o-meter, as my last fitting needed came in yesterday. I saw a tip from someone on MoreBeer's site that when you switch from Liters to Gallons, the internal math on the unit is wrong. That's a bummer. But the good news is, it's fairly straightforward to get in and change the calibration. Of course that was intended to fine tune your unit, but you can also use it to make up for their conversion error when you change from Liters to Gallons. So a few trial runs into my marked pitcher and I got it to fill to the right level.

I'm not sure about pressure regulator "need". But it was slightly sensitive to supply pressure. I have my tap running through a 3-filter sediment filter arrangement, and then the Fill-o-meter connected to the output of that. If I opened the valve fully on my supply tap, the amount dispensed into the pitcher I was measuring in seemed to be a bit shy of a gallon. But I'm talking like maybe 0.95 gallons (eyeballing the level). But that pressure/flow rate was too high anyway, and it made a lot of splashing. So I adjusted the supply knob to the pressure/flow rate that seemed about right (turned out to be 0.5 gallons/minute), and at that setting, I tuned in the calibration constant to deliver me 1 gallon of water. It was very repeatable. Maybe if your house has varying water pressure, this variation could affect you, and hence a pressure regulator would make things more stable. But I definitely didn't see the need.

The meter was pretty cool. While flowing, it displays the flow rate (gpm). So if you were trying to achieve a slow enough flow rate for your carbon filters to work, you could dial that in. And then you could just use it as a simple meter to read the amount of water dispensed, or you could program it to tell it how much water you wanted. Set it to 5.4 gallons, push start, the solenoid opens up, water flows continually until it measures the 5.4 gallons, and then it shuts off. Pretty nice.

I'll do some more playing around with it and then do my write-up review on it for HomeBrewFinds.

 

[gunhaus]

38 years ago, I made a stick with marks to match gallons in my pot. When I bought my newest pot a few years ago, I made a new stick for it. Sticks work good, and EVERYONE KNOWS, that the magic that makes good beer comes from the sacred stick. This goes back thousands of years and is indisputable! So STOP screwing around with beer tradition, gods, and possibly the primal forces of nature, with gadgetry!

 

[Golddiggie]

Besides the stick option, you could also get one of the numerous external sight glasses that you can mark the levels on. I made one for my BK years back. You could also make one yourself if you didn't want to buy one that's already made.

 

[RobP]

Come on guys move into the 21st century. The 1890's called.... they want their stick back...lol ( just joking ). But in all seriousness I like the idea of set it and forget it. I can do other things like grind grain and I even have sight glasses on all three kettles. So if I ever have a hundred bucks burning a whole in my pocket I may have to give this a try. What will they think of next? an auto mash stirrer?

 

[micraftbeer]

Update on this from brewing today. I guess a calibrated stick would've found this anyway, but...

I had 4.4 gallons of sparge water for my recipe. I typed it in to Fill-o-meter, put the hose in my Mash & Boil and let it do its thing while I measured grain. I went over to look when it was done and was shocked to find that it looked like it had underfilled. I dumped the Mash & Boil and did it again manually, 1 gallon of water at a time with my pitcher.

Came to find out my Mash & Boil volume marking was off by about 0.3 gallons. That set off a reminder light in my mind that I think I stumbled across that a few years ago when I first got the M&B. Then I went and forgot it.

If I had a stick for every brewing vessel I have or have owned over the past several years...

I suppose you could reasonably argue that I should change my brewing vessels so often, but where's the fun in that?

 

[RobP]

I just received a Blichman HERMS coil for my 20gal Blichman HLT. Once installed it renders the sight glass markings useless. Now I could measure a gal at a time and remark all the etchings. But this makes the flow meter even more appealing.

 

[matt_m]

My kettle is accurate but my problem was starting to fill my kettle and forgetting about it. Came very close to an overflow once. After the flow meter turned out to be a dud, I built a contraption with a float valve that I calibrated to fill to my typical mash volume. I adjust manually from there.

 

[T Murph]

Silly homebrewers, you are using your sticks wrong. You put your stick in the window so folks know when your new cask conditioned ale is ready to be tapped.

Seriously though, I'm in the process of figuring out the markings on my vessels because of all the hardware I've installed. The manufacturers markings were made to read liquid volumes without added hardware such as heating elements, coils etc. Sight glasses offer a good solution as they can be marked to compensate for installed hardware. I kinda like the idea of flow meters but with a sight glass they are simply more hassle than they are worth, IMO. I had sight glasses on my former gas burner 3v system and that worked fine for over 20 yrs. Guess I'll be adding them to my new system.

 

[gunhaus]

My stick is 3/4"x3/4"x3'. It is scrap maple that was in my shop, and it was free! I filled my pot in 1/2 gallon increment and marked my stick accordingly all the way from bottom to top. It is not too precise, and I am sure that sometimes I end up with 6.515 gallons of wort pre-boil, and sometimes I end up with 6.495 gallons. Same for post boil. But honestly the day THAT starts making a real world difference in my beers, I will stop brewing anyway. My stick (and my old fashioned 2 quart pitcher!) don't require any extensive cleaning regimes. They don't need batteries or electrical connections. They work during power outages! Neither unit has broken down during a brew session. Gadgets are great, especially if you are a hardcore gadget lover - so please proceed accordingly, I would never dream of infringing! But I will stay with my humble low tech stick, and will spend my gadget money on more beer seeds and flavor nuggets - I like the liquid by-product better than gizmo's anyway.

And as i said originally: Sticks have beer magic in them (Mankind had known this for millennia) Gadgets have evil gremlins in them, and they will let you down at the most critical juncture (Mankind has known this since the birth of the industrial revolution) Gadgets do look cooler and make for more interesting conversation though!!!! So there is that.

 

[marc1]

My stick is 3/4"x3/4"x3'. It is scrap maple that was in my shop, and it was free! I filled my pot in 1/2 gallon increment and marked my stick accordingly all the way from bottom to top. It is not too precise, and I am sure that sometimes I end up with 6.515 gallons of wort pre-boil, and sometimes I end up with 6.495 gallons. Same for post boil. But honestly the day THAT starts making a real world difference in my beers, I will stop brewing anyway. My stick (and my old fashioned 2 quart pitcher!) don't require any extensive cleaning regimes. They don't need batteries or electrical connections. They work during power outages! Neither unit has broken down during a brew session. Gadgets are great, especially if you are a hardcore gadget lover - so please proceed accordingly, I would never dream of infringing! But I will stay with my humble low tech stick, and will spend my gadget money on more beer seeds and flavor nuggets - I like the liquid by-product better than gizmo's anyway.

And as i said originally: Sticks have beer magic in them (Mankind had known this for millennia) Gadgets have evil gremlins in them, and they will let you down at the most critical juncture (Mankind has known this since the birth of the industrial revolution) Gadgets do look cooler and make for more interesting conversation though!!!! So there is that.

I have a long handled wooden spoon that I calibrated with markings for half gallons in my kettle. Works great. It's not super accurate, but close enough for my needs.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

My stick is 3/4"x3/4"x3'. It is scrap maple that was in my shop, and it was free! I filled my pot in 1/2 gallon increment and marked my stick accordingly all the way from bottom to top. It is not too precise, and I am sure that sometimes I end up with 6.515 gallons of wort pre-boil, and sometimes I end up with 6.495 gallons. Same for post boil. But honestly the day THAT starts making a real world difference in my beers, I will stop brewing anyway. My stick (and my old fashioned 2 quart pitcher!) don't require any extensive cleaning regimes. They don't need batteries or electrical connections. They work during power outages! Neither unit has broken down during a brew session. Gadgets are great, especially if you are a hardcore gadget lover - so please proceed accordingly, I would never dream of infringing! But I will stay with my humble low tech stick, and will spend my gadget money on more beer seeds and flavor nuggets - I like the liquid by-product better than gizmo's anyway.

And as i said originally: Sticks have beer magic in them (Mankind had known this for millennia) Gadgets have evil gremlins in them, and they will let you down at the most critical juncture (Mankind has known this since the birth of the industrial revolution) Gadgets do look cooler and make for more interesting conversation though!!!! So there is that.

I did the same thing, added a half gallon at a time and made a mark.

But my stick is "dual purpose", I made the marks on my mash paddle, then made them a bit more permanent, and burned them in with a soldering iron.
Then used the soldering iron and made marks like on dice to indicate the volume.

 

[gunhaus]

I did the same thing, added a half gallon at a time and made a mark.

But my stick is "dual purpose", I made the marks on my mash paddle, then made them a bit more permanent, and burned them in with a soldering iron.
Then used the soldering iron and made marks like on dice to indicate the volume.

Guaranteed THAT stick has beer magic in it!!!

 

[Dr_Jeff]

Guaranteed THAT stick has beer magic in it!!!

Magic for sure.
One of the few brewing things that my wife has bought for me.