Yuma Brewers

J and I both had the same realization on friday. Saturday I went over to Marks and started making it a reality. Nick came over to assist and we got quite a bit done. But there’s still more to do Sunday.

After sourcing several scrap kegs we set to work. At first we only had one scrap keg so that was what we started on. Step one was to release all the pressure in it and any residual beer. We lucked out. There was no pressure and almost no beer. With that out of the way we figured out how to remove the dip dube and coupler (it’s a really annoying snap ring). We were now sure there was no residual pressure.

Next I tied a bit of wire around the center neck in a loop and put a pencil in the end to draw a perfect 12″ circle. Turns out though the guide is almost unnecessary. With Marks air grinder resting on the center and the dust shield just touching the edge of the keg it cut a perfect circle. Took about half an hour but wasn’t too horrible.

After a quick pass with the die grinder to clean up the edge and a bit more touch up with a flap disc in the angle grinder I ran up to the hardware store for the valve fittings. On the way there I picked up Nick since Mark and sourced two more scrap kegs and I didn’t want to cut another anytime soon!

Returning to Marks I used a washer to mark out where the drain would go and a step bit to drill it out. We’re using 1/2″ ball valves with 1/2″ hose barbs to match our high temp hose. On the inside I’m using 3/4″ copper which in the kettle and lauter tuns will simply angle to the ground as pickups.

In the mash tun we’re making a circle out of 3/4″ copper which will be slotted to form the filter at the base. Mark is also brainstorming ideas for a sparge arm from the Lautertun.

The real fun part will be building a stand for it all…..

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 12th, 2006 at 12:03 am and is filed under Equipment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.