The epoxy was down at the bottom as expected and did not appear to be liquid so I assumed it was solid enough to dry placed on its side.  Well it really wasn’t, and it flowed a bit down the side of the tube.  This wasn’t a big deal because the wire connections and sides of the element still have a thick coating but if I do this again I will definitely wait a full two days before moving it around.

Before I sealed up the rest of the stick I took it for a test run and it worked as expected.  I plan to use it to fix low mash temperatures, and if it’s strong enough to do step mashes.  It’s only a 1500W element so that may be a tough challenge for it.

I tried two sizes and styles, a clear polystyrene jar and a translucent polypropelene style.

Jars from USPlastics

The jar on the left is item 70214, the clear polystyrene (lid).  It’s 24oz and easily holds 2oz of ribbon-cut.  On the right is the polypropelene style, item 66717 (lid) .  It’s 16oz and is a perfect size for 2oz of ribbon-cut.  Both lids that I selected stack nicely as you can see above.  The 16oz jar is wide enough to catch any droppings while loading your bowl but as you can see the clear one is even wider.

These things are super cheap, the lids are $0.30 range while the jars are a little over a buck apiece.

This might feel like a bit of a schill for USPlastics, but I simply appreciate their wide selection, cheap prices, and very reasonable shipping rates, and wanted to point them out to other hobbyists.

It’s pretty great but did require some minor reconfiguration of my kegerator. Previously I had a single gas line coming into the fridge with it being split inside to the kegs.  Because I now need to switch a gas disconnect between two gas tanks I drilled a second 1/2″ hole in the back of the fridge and ran both disconnect lines out through there.    Then I moved the gas splitter outside the fridge so that with two CO₂ kegs I’ll simply split the CO₂ through there.  When I have a stout on tap I’ll simply move that disconnect off of the CO₂ splitter over to the Nitrogen keg.  I used extra-long lengths of gas hose with swivel flare fittings to make moving them around easy.

I got the tank, faucet, and spare parts from Keg Connection and I got it filled at Weld Specialty’s Milwaukee location.  Using Northern Brewer’s Nitro Keg Guide I set the N₂ regulator to 25 psi and got a nice pour on the first attempt.

CO2 Split Between Disconnects for Two Normal Kegs

Stout Keg Disconnect Routed to Nitro Keg

Nitro Keg Hooked Up

New Faucet

Nice Pour on the First Attempt

Space Behind Seat

I made two caddies, one to go to the right of the seat belt and one to go where the jack handle straps down.

Passenger Side Caddy

Driver's Side Caddy

I used some cheap 1/4″ OSB because that’s what scrap wood I had on hand but I wouldn’t make them out anything much thicker because it’s overkill and it would eat into your storage space.   Nicely enough Toyota welded some nuts behind the horizontal tube so I was able to securely fasten the caddies to the back wall.  The nuts are M6 with a 1.00 thread pitch, and I used 20mm machine bolts.

Back Wall Mounting Point

Design considerations:

• The caddies can only be about 5″ deep or else the seat will hit them when adjusted all the way back.
• Don’t make them too wide or else they will interfere with the seat tilt lever
• I didn’t bother to make bottoms as the things I’m storing are large and won’t slip though.  However I did wind up having to put some smaller bungees into a small box.  If I eventually need bottoms I’ll staple on some webbing or fabric.
• Both sides have an “ear” that sticks out to the threaded nut; this was because I was unable to go any farther to the left with the caddy.

Driver's Side

Passenger Side

 

Gotta have room for that atlas!

Ideally I’d have a plate scale that could handle 30+ pounds but this was a much cheaper alternative1

I grabbed four of them at a local farmer’s market for $3.50, split & cleaned then, and roasted them @ 375 for 2:15.

So today I cut out the outer shell leaving just the inner liner, and I redid the bulkhead to only sandwich that inner liner.  It’s much sturdier now.  Photos and descriptions follow.

Here is how much shell I dremel’d away.  In retrospective I should have cut away some more to make getting my fingers around the locknut easier.

Shell Cutaway

I’m using a fully-close nipple instead of the almost-closed nipple that came with the original kit.  That slight reduction in length lets me clamp down on the inner shell.

Closed Nipples

Here is a chunk of the wort-soaked foam from in between the cooler walls.  Thankfully the expanding foam they use forms a good seal along the walls so my wort leaks didn’t seep very far in.

Moldy Foam

To be able to get a better clamp on the wall I’m using a big 1/2″ silicone washer.

Big Silicone Washer

And the finished product.  The ball valve had enough thread to get a good seal and a leak test passed.

Bulkhead Exterior

]]> http://www.tracezero.net/Beer/2011/05/21/reworked-mlt-bulkhead/feed/ 0 http://www.tracezero.net/Beer/2011/04/12/morebeer-carbonating-keg-lid/ http://www.tracezero.net/Beer/2011/04/12/morebeer-carbonating-keg-lid/#comments Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:52:04 +0000 DavidP http://www.tracezero.net/Beer/?p=468 So I was feeling a little spendy a few months back so I sprung for MoreBeer’s $70 carbonating keg lid.  I’ve used it to carb two kegs and by golly it does work.   Each batch has been ready in about 3 days total, a big improvement over the week of shaking and waiting I’d do before.  It’s nice how this piece of kit prevents me from overcarbing my beer, something I’d usually do when attempting to force-carb.

I’ve been approximately following their instructions:

• Fill keg, and if needed put in kegerator to chill down.  Use the carbonating lid.
• Set gas very low in the 2-4 psi range.
• Increase by about 2 psi every couple of hours
• When I’ve reached my target pressure (usually around 8 or 10) I’ll leave it for another day with the carb lid still on.
  • At this point the beer will be carbonated as evidenced by the taste and seeing the fine bubbles coming out of solution.  However your pours will be very slow because the small headspace and restriction the stone puts on the incoming gas to fill that void.  So because of the slow pours you likely won’t get a nice looking head, but switching the gas over to the regular gas post will increase your pour speed and then you should start getting nice pours.
  • After another day with the gas on the regular post my pours are “normal” with the head & carbonation having the fine bubble structure that I’d normally get after maybe 2-3 weeks with a normally-carbonated keg.

I put the wood cubes in a nylon bag and suspended it from the keg lid.  6 days later the beer had what I felt was an appropriate level of wood/char flavor and I removed the bag.  This sure didn’t take long, but then again they do give you a generous amount of wood in the kit as seen below.

This tube I used silicone rubber hose as it’s resistance to high temperatures and is food-safe.  I happened to have some 1/2″ ID, 3/4″ OD firm tubing from McMaster Carr (51135K86) which worked well.  I had to immerse the tube in boiling water to get it over the tube, but once on it’s a snug fit so no worm clam was needed.  I started with more hose than I needed and whittled it down until the carafe was left with a thin layer of water across the entire bottom.  As you can see this wound up being about 7mm of tube extension.

Yama Tip Tube with Hose

Here’s a short video showing the amount of water left: