My Electric Brewery - Part 6a, A start on the Boil Kettle

[chastuck]

With the mash tun completed it was time to start on the boil kettle. As for the HLT, I’m using one of mrlard’s high-end 100L stainless steel pots. The pot will have the same fittings as the HLT – 3 piece ½” BSP ball valve, sight glass, 5500kW element and recirculating ball valve. In addition, I will be fitting a stainless steel hop stopper purchased from here: http://www.ihomebrewsolutions.com/. First thing to do was to mark the pot up for the various holes. A hole was drilled for the dial thermometer and the outlet ball valve using a 3mm drill for a pilot hole and followed by using a tin step drill (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0728957465). I didn’t use the step drill to fully enlarge the holes, only enough to fit the bolt of a chassis punch – a 20.4mm Q-Max for the ball valve and a 14mm Q-Max for the thermometer. As for the previous pots made for My Electric Brewery, I am using weldless fittings – see my earlier postings for how these are assembled. The pictures below show the three piece ball valve and dial thermometer before and after the holes.

The hop stopper as supplied came with a ½” NPT female compression fitting. I fitted the compression joint onto a male ½” BSP cone seat union. This means I can easily remove the hop stopper for effective cleaning. The dip tube of the hop stopper had to be trimmed by 1” to centre the hop stopper in the middle of the pot. The pictures below show the hop stopper and fittings before and after mounting in the pot.

I only had a couple of hours free to work today, so couldn’t complete all I wanted to. My next opportunity to work will be Tuesday or Wednesday, when I hope to fit the recirculation ball valve and sight glass. More posts and photos to follow later in the week.

 

[Fil]

Cracking build, how do the better pots compare to the usual french Stock pots?

do like the hanging of the lid on the pot handle, even if it is the least impresive aspect of the build..

Whens the christening to take place??

 

[chastuck]

Cracking build, how do the better pots compare to the usual french Stock pots?

do like the hanging of the lid on the pot handle, even if it is the least impresive aspect of the build..

Whens the christening to take place??

These "better pots" are a lot more robust. The walls are thicker and do not dent as easily. They also have a brushed finish which looks nice. Due to the extra thickness any fittings on the pot sides do not seem to 'wobble' like they do on a Bergland. Hanging the pot lid by its handle was something that I picked up from the Blichmann Boilermaker pots. The pot lid handles on those are purposely designed to do this. Seemed like a good idea, so I made my own version. May not be impressive, but it's often the little tips like this that make brewing life easier. I have to brew on my garden patio due to space constraints indoors, so the "Christening" will have to wait for milder weather. Besides which, I need to do some dummy runs with the control panel first. Probably knock up a brew end of February and will post up when I do.