question on a keggle I just made

So I just finished up my keggle (from now on referred to as kettle since keggle is ghey). My valve is positioned so that 1.5 gallons of liquid will fit in the bottom. How will this convert to lost liquid after the trub settles out?

Basically, is this about the right height? I can post a pic later if that would help.

You'll want to put a pickup tube in there to get more out.

In a 5 gallon batch 1.25 gallons is about 20% of your total volume. It will take your brew house efficiency down about 15% which is huge.

There are a number of different kinds of pickups, each having advantages and disadvantages. I use a side pickup which actually leaves about a .75 gallons in there. I have it set up so I can whirlpool. I leave all the break and trub behind and even without hop bags and such I get virtually no hops in my fermentor.

You can also "tip" the keg if you want..

my pickup tube is located about halfway between the bottomed out portion and the side of the keggle, and its off the bottom like half a centimeter.. seems to be a good position to make sure anything that may have crept its way past my mesh bag isn't sucked up with the pump

I bought the 5/8" diptube from brewhardware.com for mine. Its a weldless fitting and i can swivel the end of the tube to the side or just leave it straight down. My first batch using it i tried the whirlpool tactic that ive read about here but it didn't do much to keep the hop trub out so ive basically decided to can the diptube to the side slightly and it leaves me with about a half gallon of loss.

Adding a dip tube totally defeats the whole idea of leaving it high to avoid trub. I assume from your question and location of the bung that you are doing a whirlpool.
I whirlpool in a Keggle too. And who says calling it a keggle is ghey?
Boil and cool the wort normally. Stir as fast as you can and cover for 20 minutes.
Drain slowly and leave the trub behind. Once it get's down so you can actually see the trub, you can determine if it's safe to tip and get as much wort as you can.
Measure what you collect and keep that in mind for next time. I make 6 gallon batches for a final bottling of 5 gallons.
BTW, loosing wort to trub in no way affects your efficiency, since that is measure before draining off the trub. It only affects the final bottling volume.

Or just transfer the trub to the fermenter. It serves as yeast nutrient, and pretty much the only downside is that you have to rack carefully post-fermentation, but you have to do that anyway.

TopherM said:

Or just transfer the trub to the fermenter. It serves as yeast nutrient, and pretty much the only downside is that you have to rack carefully post-fermentation, but you have to do that anyway.

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That's what I do. My pickup is just an elbow and a hose barb screwed onto the bulkhead, so it touches the "bottom" about 2" from the side wall. There is still some left in the convex bottom-center of the keggle, which is where the trub settles...maybe 0.5 gallons

100% from my boil kettle goes into my fermenter. If my pickup tube doesn't get it, I dump in!

I do filter hops in 1 gallon paint strainer bags, because I chill with a plate chiller that can't handle the big chunks.

Cold break proteins, though? INTO THE FERMENTER!! :rockin: