waldzinator
Well-Known Member
Hi,
I recently built my AG setup. I'm mashing in a 10 gallon cooler, but my HLT and BK are both converted kegs. For my BK, I went with a weldless fitting and whirlpool side pickup from bargainfittings.com. After installation, I decided to do a dry run with just water to get a sense of my boil-up time, evap rate, deadspace, etc. I'm a data guy, so I can't jump into anything without testing it thoroughly....
At the end of my boil, I popped in my homemade IC and got the temp down to 75 in 6 minutes. Not bad at all. However, when I went to move the test wort from the BK to my carboy, I was left with a lot of remaining water at the bottom. Fastforward to last night. I decided to test with 2 gallons of water. I set my BK level, attached the high-temp tubing from the barb into the carboy, and let er' rip. Well, it died off after moving only about 1/2-3/4 (let's call it 5/8) of a gallon. It doesn't appear that I have any leaky connections. The waterline was still above the top of the pickup. The ONLY way I could get it to pump out the rest of the water was to tilt the BK very much to the side of the pickup opening. Basically, if there isn't a wall of water sitting on top of it, it doesn't seem to work. PICS of the inside...there is about a 1/4 inch gap between the bottom of the pickup and the bottom - of course, this is the bottom of the keg on the side, due to the domed-shape. Still, I should be pulling more out.
Any thoughts??? By the way, the pickup is attached with the metal ferrule, not the plastic.
I recently built my AG setup. I'm mashing in a 10 gallon cooler, but my HLT and BK are both converted kegs. For my BK, I went with a weldless fitting and whirlpool side pickup from bargainfittings.com. After installation, I decided to do a dry run with just water to get a sense of my boil-up time, evap rate, deadspace, etc. I'm a data guy, so I can't jump into anything without testing it thoroughly....
At the end of my boil, I popped in my homemade IC and got the temp down to 75 in 6 minutes. Not bad at all. However, when I went to move the test wort from the BK to my carboy, I was left with a lot of remaining water at the bottom. Fastforward to last night. I decided to test with 2 gallons of water. I set my BK level, attached the high-temp tubing from the barb into the carboy, and let er' rip. Well, it died off after moving only about 1/2-3/4 (let's call it 5/8) of a gallon. It doesn't appear that I have any leaky connections. The waterline was still above the top of the pickup. The ONLY way I could get it to pump out the rest of the water was to tilt the BK very much to the side of the pickup opening. Basically, if there isn't a wall of water sitting on top of it, it doesn't seem to work. PICS of the inside...there is about a 1/4 inch gap between the bottom of the pickup and the bottom - of course, this is the bottom of the keg on the side, due to the domed-shape. Still, I should be pulling more out.
Any thoughts??? By the way, the pickup is attached with the metal ferrule, not the plastic.