Kettle Upgrade

I've upgraded my boil kettle with a sight gauge and spigot. I went with weld-less fittings for both of these because the pot I have is aluminum and the fittings are all stainless steel. I've been told that welding stainless to aluminum in possible, but is expensive. So we go with the weld-less fittings. For those of you who enjoy watching how-to videos I have posted a Kettle Spigot Install on my YouTube channel.

The sight-gauge kit I picked up from my local home brew supply store for $26.


The Spigot I used is the Bayou Classic 800-775 Stainless Steel Brew Spigot from Amazon and a bazooka kettle screen. It was $34.47 for both. I figured since I have a Bayou Classic boil kettle it made sense to use their spigot, and it didn't hurt that it was one of the less expensive spigot kits available. Also it didn't come with any extra pieces. I wanted a Female Quick Disconnect at the end of the spigot so I didn't need the barb most of the spigots came with.

I decided to put the spigot next to the sight gauge. Keep all the controls in the same area and such. Using a step bit for my drill to make the hole. This was much easier to use then I anticipated.

The bulk that came with the spigot included 2 high temperature teflon washers and two nuts with a washer grove on one side. The double threaded fitting is put through the hole with the washer/nut combination on each side. Make sure to tighten these all the way. The washer is what creates the water tight seal here so it has to be partially compressed against the side of the kettle, or it won't seal properly. You can see the washer nested inside the groove of the nut below.




With the bulkhead in place, I put 7 wraps of teflon tape around the threads to ensure a water tight seal with the spigot. Then attache the spigot. I used a wrench on the inside to hold the bulkhead in place while tightening the spigot.



The female quick disconnect (QD) is added the same way the spigot was added to the bulkhead. 7 wraps of teflon around the threads of the QD fitting, then thread it into the spigots threaded port. Tighten with two wrenches, one on the spigot, the other on the QD.

Now I won't have to rely on a siphon to rack the wort to the fermentor, I can use gravity from the port, or I can use the pump. Either way it will be a lot faster through a half inch port then through a quarter inch tube.

Until I get the sight gauge marked off it 1/2 gallon increments I can still use my notched stir paddle to determine volume. Seems like a waste of 14 gallons of water to just pour it in, then dump it. Perhaps I'll do the marking a couple days before brew day and save the water to use on brew day. I like that idea.

Sláinte!

RIMS fiacso

With the PID controller all wired up, I connected the temperature probe to the DIP unit to discover that it doesn't work. There are some possibilities for this issue.

Firstly the probe may not be wired to the controller correctly. There are, after all 4 ports on the DIP and 3 wires from the probe. My first attempt was following the wiring diagram shown in the directions. Nothing. So I switched the wires because the probe didn't say at all what the wires it has are. The assumption is that every one who is using this temperature probe already knows how it is wired up internally.

So with 4 ports and 3 wires, two of which are the same color so, there are 12 possible arrangements of the wires. If the single wire is to be jumped to the empty port, as the diagram implies, there are 24 combinations. I didn't have it all worked out in a spreadsheet when I was testing it, but I have a pretty logical mind and was able to go through the various combinations. None of them worked, some less wrong than others. I then went online to get advice from those who have used these two items before me. The consensus was the went wires were to connect top and bottom and the white wire to the second port. There was some differences in opinion as to if the white wire should be jumped or not.

With all that in mind I thought it might be a bad probe, so I purchased another one. Same result, which implies something is wrong with the PID controller. After purchase research, which was much more in-depth than pre-purchase research, revealed that these particular controllers often have a live span of less than one year. To my mind this implies inferior craftsmanship which lend credence to the defective PID controller theory.

So now I am left with wondering if I should purchase another PID and try again, or just cut my losses and let this project go. Considering how much time and money I have in this I am loath to let it go. In hind sight it would have been cheaper to just buy an already built RIMS unit.

Live and learn. At least that's the theory, but I find that often its live and repeat often until learned.

Sláinte!