The Bar Towel

I've just come into possession of a 50L keg that I want to convert into a brew kettle (no bad karma on this keg, it came to me through legitimate channels, its a Berliner Bürgerbräu). I'm interested in what some of you home brewers here might recommend for its construction/deconstruction.
-Angle grinder vs. plasma cutter? (I can probably get a grinder for $20-$30 on kijiji vs. a 1hr shop fee of $80 for a plasma cut, how frustrating is it to cut through a keg top with a grinder)
-welded vs screw in drain on the bottom? How high from the bottom?
-"hopstopper", anyone have any experience building this type of thing themselves

phirleh wrote:I've just come into possession of a 50L keg that I want to convert into a brew kettle (no bad karma on this keg, it came to me through legitimate channels, its a Berliner Bürgerbräu). I'm interested in what some of you home brewers here might recommend for its construction/deconstruction.
-Angle grinder vs. plasma cutter? (I can probably get a grinder for $20-$30 on kijiji vs. a 1hr shop fee of $80 for a plasma cut, how frustrating is it to cut through a keg top with a grinder)

my vote is for the angle grinder - one of the cheapest options and you can continue to use it for other stuff. get yourself the thinnest stainless steel blade (should only be $2-3) and it'll go through it super easy. not frustrating at all. take your time and don't use too much force or you'll kill your blade that much faster. i HIGHLY recommend ear and eye protection.

keep an eye on the canadian tire ads, especially if you've got a stash of cdn tire money. i got an $80 grinder on sale for $35 which only cost me like $18 after i cashed in my stash of money.

if you want to go even cheaper, you can do it with a dremel and fiberglass-reinforced cutting wheels. the wheels are expensive and it's somewhat slow and tedious, but it works. cut my first couple this way. it has the advantage of making a cleaner cut than the other two options. the dremel is also nice for cleaning up the edges after you cut it open.

phirleh wrote:-welded vs screw in drain on the bottom? How high from the bottom?

i've got a welded bulkhead on a couple of mine, but i have nothing against weldless. just happened that those two kegs came from a buddy who works in a welding shop, so i got 'em plasma cut and bulkheads welded for almost nothing.

phirleh wrote:-"hopstopper", anyone have any experience building this type of thing themselves

i went with more like a false bottom, but that thing looks fairly simple to make.

cutting with a dremel (and helpful setup info)

false bottom and such

Thanks for the advice, I like the look of your false bottom set-up, I think I may go that way and do the angle grinder thing.

phirleh wrote:Thanks for the advice, I like the look of your false bottom set-up, I think I may go that way and do the angle grinder thing.

i used the angle grinder to make those too. it's a sheet of perforated stainless steel that i cut into a circle, then cut a slot from the center to one side. it's pretty stiff stuff, but with a little work i was able to gradually shape it into a slight cone, then throw in a couple screws to hold it in place.

it won't block hop pellets very well, but if you throw in an ounce or so of leaf along with your pellets it strains quite well. and i've even done an all-leaf batch where the kettle was approx 1/3 full of hops at the end - drained without any issues.

it works pretty well. i've got both of my main boil kettles (50L) setup with one, and another sheet of the perforated stainless so i can make one more. i'd like to get bulkheads in my big one (15.5gal) and one of my little ones (7.8gal) so i can throw one in there for the rare occasions where i'm doing a half batch or a larger volume/longer boil. currently i still use the 50L kettles even if i'm doing a 5gal batch, which is kind of overkill...

I just put together a new 12.5gal keggle this weekend. Had a friend do the cutting for me last weekend with a grinder. I can take some pics, but I just use a stainless steel braid as a filter (our club's keggle was built this way, and it works just fine with leaf hops, not so good with pellets... I've been using 100% leaf for 3 years now). Ran some plain water through as a test, and it only left 500ml in the keggle. Cost me a 6-pack of beer to do the cutting, and about $15 in parts from Home Depot.

I should also be coming into some 15 gal kegs in the next couple months, one of which should make a kick ass keggle for 10 gallon batches.

Wow, it took all of about 3 minutes to cut through it. I got an angle grinder and built a nice jig. I have a tap coming from Bargain Fittings too this week.

Any idea where you can get a weldless conversion kit in Canada?