For sale is a 60L thermopot which has been converted into both a boil kettle and a mash tun. Overall dimensions are 630mm high (including the skirt) and O/D 460mm. Weight is approximately 17kg. The pot has a fabricated stainless steel skirt fitted, within which is positioned the pipework for the centre drain via a 1 inch stainless steel skin deck fitting. Using a skirt for the drain and ball valve pipework removes the need to cut out pieces from the bottom and sides of the thermopot to accommodate the drain fittings. I believe it gives a better look and is a more desirable approach. The inside of the skirt, and hence the drain pipework, is covered in insulation foam. The base of the skirt is covered with a brushed stainless steel bottom to give a neat finish and to protect the foam.
It was built by me as an experimental rig to test the concept of one-kettle brewing, but I soon fell out of favour with the idea and reverted to my stainless steel three vessel brewing setup I like lots of shiny! In the end, I never used it for one-kettle brewing. Instead I have used it a few times as a stand-alone mash tun and once or twice as a stand-alone boiler. I think this pot is probably quite unique in its design and could be of benefit to someone who wants to take my build further and try BIAB, or even use it as a basis to construct a Braumeister clone. The skirt height is 100mm. This leaves plenty of room to mount some electronic controls of your own design if you wanted to by unscrewing the covering and removing some, or all, of the foam.
The pot is fitted with a 1 inch BSP stainless steel 316 full bore ball valve. This is fitted with a reducer on the outlet and a 1/2 inch 316 F camlock. A graduated polycarbonate sight glass is fitted, which is tee'd off the bottom centre draining pipework of the pot. This type of sight glass arrangement can depress the level in the sight glass when draining because of the Venturi negative pressure effect. To counteract this, what I have done is to fit a 1/2 inch BSP stainless steel mini ball valve at the bottom end of the sight glass. By adjusting how far this mini valve is open you can introduce fluid friction on the water as the level falls in the sight glass. By experimenting with this adjustment you can reach a point where the friction of the falling water in the sight glass just balances the lowering of pressure at the tee junction. By marking this â'sweet point'', you will find that the sight glass now gives an accurate measurement of both filling and draining the vessel, without the suction effect influencing the reading. There is also no âbounce-back' in the tube when you close the main ball valve. The plus with this arrangement is that by closing the bottom mini valve completely you now have a readymade entry point at the top of the sight glass to feed in a re-circulatory flow or a sparging connection. The entry point tee at the top of the sight glass is fitted with a Pt100 sensor and a further 1/2 inch mini ball valve to control flow input. See the pics below to see what I mean.
Several methods of sparging and mashing are offered with this pot. You get all that you see in the photos, including a stainless steel perforated false bottom, three types of sparge arm and a five foot silicon sparge hose. The FB is 20mm high and 300mm in diameter. It was custom made by The Malt Miller to my specification. It is purposely designed slightly smaller than the internal base of the pot, but the welded rim that it sits on is perforated all around its edge. This means that sidewall shunting and channelling are greatly reduced when sparging or lautering. The diameter is also the widest that would fit under the heating elements. The FB could also be used as a hop filter (flowers not pellets), although I have never tried this. All the various sparge arrangements have been adapted for quick and easy change or removal. High temperature washers allow the fittings to be readily swapped and changed and can be made water tight by simply hand screwing.
The pot is fitted with two new 2750W Backer old-kettle style elements. Two 1.5M leads and plugs are supplied.
Although primarily designed to boil the wort, when the pot is used as a mash tun they can used to pre-heat the strike water prior to tipping in the grain. Obviously, to avoid the grain scorching, the elements would have to be turned off while the mash was in progress. Once mashing temperature has settled down I have found that the pot will only lose 1.5 degrees C over a 90 minute mash period.
To keep the heating elements firmly in place and water tight, I use custom made stainless steel shrouds. The shrouds are double threaded, so as well as securing the elements water tight inside the pot, the outside thread on the shroud allows a M50 stainless steel KM lock nut and silicon washer to screw up tightly against the outside double wall of the pot. This prevents any problem if there's an over-boil, or in cleaning off the outside of the pot, as otherwise liquid could seep into the gap between the double walls and into the foam. These stainless steel shrouds were specially made to my requirements and are not available elsewhere to my knowledge. See below:
Some final pictures of the pot:
Price and delivery options
The price for the pot and all accessories is £225. If any interested buyer wants a copy of a spreadsheet of parts and costs I am happy to oblige. Please private message me if you want the spreadsheet or have any questions.
Due to the weight and size of the pot I would prefer the buyer collects. However, I will provide free delivery of the pot to buyers living in Greater London south of the Thames or in any southern home counties. I may be willing to meet buyers from other locations half way between my place and theirs if they pay me for the fuel used at 15p per mile. I am willing to discuss other delivery arrangements at your cost and risk. Cash on collection or on delivery please.
It was built by me as an experimental rig to test the concept of one-kettle brewing, but I soon fell out of favour with the idea and reverted to my stainless steel three vessel brewing setup I like lots of shiny! In the end, I never used it for one-kettle brewing. Instead I have used it a few times as a stand-alone mash tun and once or twice as a stand-alone boiler. I think this pot is probably quite unique in its design and could be of benefit to someone who wants to take my build further and try BIAB, or even use it as a basis to construct a Braumeister clone. The skirt height is 100mm. This leaves plenty of room to mount some electronic controls of your own design if you wanted to by unscrewing the covering and removing some, or all, of the foam.
The pot is fitted with a 1 inch BSP stainless steel 316 full bore ball valve. This is fitted with a reducer on the outlet and a 1/2 inch 316 F camlock. A graduated polycarbonate sight glass is fitted, which is tee'd off the bottom centre draining pipework of the pot. This type of sight glass arrangement can depress the level in the sight glass when draining because of the Venturi negative pressure effect. To counteract this, what I have done is to fit a 1/2 inch BSP stainless steel mini ball valve at the bottom end of the sight glass. By adjusting how far this mini valve is open you can introduce fluid friction on the water as the level falls in the sight glass. By experimenting with this adjustment you can reach a point where the friction of the falling water in the sight glass just balances the lowering of pressure at the tee junction. By marking this â'sweet point'', you will find that the sight glass now gives an accurate measurement of both filling and draining the vessel, without the suction effect influencing the reading. There is also no âbounce-back' in the tube when you close the main ball valve. The plus with this arrangement is that by closing the bottom mini valve completely you now have a readymade entry point at the top of the sight glass to feed in a re-circulatory flow or a sparging connection. The entry point tee at the top of the sight glass is fitted with a Pt100 sensor and a further 1/2 inch mini ball valve to control flow input. See the pics below to see what I mean.
Several methods of sparging and mashing are offered with this pot. You get all that you see in the photos, including a stainless steel perforated false bottom, three types of sparge arm and a five foot silicon sparge hose. The FB is 20mm high and 300mm in diameter. It was custom made by The Malt Miller to my specification. It is purposely designed slightly smaller than the internal base of the pot, but the welded rim that it sits on is perforated all around its edge. This means that sidewall shunting and channelling are greatly reduced when sparging or lautering. The diameter is also the widest that would fit under the heating elements. The FB could also be used as a hop filter (flowers not pellets), although I have never tried this. All the various sparge arrangements have been adapted for quick and easy change or removal. High temperature washers allow the fittings to be readily swapped and changed and can be made water tight by simply hand screwing.
The pot is fitted with two new 2750W Backer old-kettle style elements. Two 1.5M leads and plugs are supplied.
Although primarily designed to boil the wort, when the pot is used as a mash tun they can used to pre-heat the strike water prior to tipping in the grain. Obviously, to avoid the grain scorching, the elements would have to be turned off while the mash was in progress. Once mashing temperature has settled down I have found that the pot will only lose 1.5 degrees C over a 90 minute mash period.
To keep the heating elements firmly in place and water tight, I use custom made stainless steel shrouds. The shrouds are double threaded, so as well as securing the elements water tight inside the pot, the outside thread on the shroud allows a M50 stainless steel KM lock nut and silicon washer to screw up tightly against the outside double wall of the pot. This prevents any problem if there's an over-boil, or in cleaning off the outside of the pot, as otherwise liquid could seep into the gap between the double walls and into the foam. These stainless steel shrouds were specially made to my requirements and are not available elsewhere to my knowledge. See below:
Some final pictures of the pot:
Price and delivery options
The price for the pot and all accessories is £225. If any interested buyer wants a copy of a spreadsheet of parts and costs I am happy to oblige. Please private message me if you want the spreadsheet or have any questions.
Due to the weight and size of the pot I would prefer the buyer collects. However, I will provide free delivery of the pot to buyers living in Greater London south of the Thames or in any southern home counties. I may be willing to meet buyers from other locations half way between my place and theirs if they pay me for the fuel used at 15p per mile. I am willing to discuss other delivery arrangements at your cost and risk. Cash on collection or on delivery please.
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