My Stainless steel 50L boiler

[chastuck]

Here's my 50L stainless steel boiler. I started off with a standard 50L catering stock pot. To enable a bottom drain system I got a local steel fabricator to make me a 100mm x 2mm thick SS ring and stitch weld a 1mm disc to the top of the ring rather like a cake stand, but bigger! I did try using JB cold weld to fix the ring and top to the base of the stock pot, but it didn't seem to hold too well. So I decided to use a 1/2 inch brass flanged blanking nut to help secure the pot and base together at the rear of the pot. The front of the pot and the new base are held together by the plumbing of the ball valve piping joints. In addition, I used a 3mm thick x 25mm wide stainless steel bar at each side of the pot using the heating element mounting bolts. To finish it off nicely and conceal the join, I bolted a 0.9mm x 25mm SS band all around the pot at the point where the pot and stand meet. Before fitting and bolting the band I used heat resistant silicon sealant to keep any likely spillage out of the joins. I would have preferred to have the new base welded to the pot, but you would not believe the prices quoted by steel fabricators for this simple job, so went along the mechanical bolting route. The drain hole is a brass marine skin fitting using a hand cut circle of silicon baking sheet as the sealing washer. The skin fitting has been ground down and slots cut with an angle grinder to improve drainage. The heating elements are from Backer and are the old type 2.75kW kettle elements. The stainless steel shrouds are from our friend in Ireland. To finish it all off and hide the plumbing, a 0.9mm stainless steel bottom was fixed to the bottom with small stainless steel lugs. I bought the base as a square from Clickmetals and cut it to a circle using a stainless steel cutting blade in a jigsaw, grinding and smoothing the edges off with an angle grinder. Expanded foam was squirted in and levelled off when dry before fitting the base.

[DerbyshireNick]

*dribbles*

[dean_wales]

WOW. In awe of your DIY skills, thats the most rugged and professional stock pot boiler I have seen.

Congrats.

[Fil]

very nice and neat builds, i also liked your mashtun with a similar skirt, what did the ss fabrication set you back? it looks worth it .

[barneey]

How are you finding the acuracy of the combined sight + ballvalve take off? or I`m assuming as its used as a boiler it doesnt matter anyway.

I`ll also be interested in how you get on with the sight tube in the boiler, never tried installing one on the boiler itself due to a few reports of cleaning / discolour issues caused by the wort.

Keep us updated please

[chastuck]

very nice and neat builds, i also liked your mashtun with a similar skirt, what did the ss fabrication set you back? it looks worth it .

It took me a long time searching the web and many phone calls before finding steel fabricators that would charge a reasonable cost. The satin finished SS skirts on their own worked out at about £60. The cake stand type skirt was from a different company and cost £110. I bought three catering pots in one go from a German company (50L pot, 70L pot and 50L thermo-pot) and including delivery they worked out at £60 each. So the cost to construct the vessels was not cheap, but still much less than buying them ready made. Plus also of course you get the satisfaction of creating something yourself.

[chastuck]

How are you finding the acuracy of the combined sight + ballvalve take off? or I`m assuming as its used as a boiler it doesnt matter anyway.

I`ll also be interested in how you get on with the sight tube in the boiler, never tried installing one on the boiler itself due to a few reports of cleaning / discolour issues caused by the wort.

Keep us updated please

The vessel is only used as a boiler, so the sight tube is mainly used as a filling aid. It was accurately marked off using a one gallon jug tipped into the pot one jug at a time. During run-off the sight level does go down quicker than than the general water level due to presumably a suction effect, but I either crack the tap open slowly to remove this effect or have learnt from using it how to judge the site level drop and make allowances. So far I have had no discolouration problems with the tube. The bottom of the tube is higher than, and drains into, the 1" ball valve outlet, so I have no problems with left over liquids in the tube. When cleaning the vessel after use I simply squirt hot water into the top of the tube and flush it out via the aforementioned ball valve.

[Fil]

very nice and neat builds, i also liked your mashtun with a similar skirt, what did the ss fabrication set you back? it looks worth it .

It took me a long time searching the web and many phone calls before finding steel fabricators that would charge a reasonable cost. The satin finished SS skirts on their own worked out at about £60. The cake stand type skirt was from a different company and cost £110. I bought three catering pots in one go from a German company (50L pot, 70L pot and 50L thermo-pot) and including delivery they worked out at £60 each. So the cost to construct the vessels was not cheap, but still much less than buying them ready made. Plus also of course you get the satisfaction of creating something yourself.

Less ££s than a prebuilt , then totally worth it, if you had a friendly fabricator willing to do odd little brew jobs in SS it might be a resource worth sharing.

[barneey]

Definately a market for the element shrouds, ur friend in Ireland want to make anymore?

[Cazamodo]

looking good! Love the skirt idea looks really good. When I finally upgrade to a larger version (keep telling myself not for some time) I may go down this route. I like the elements on the side too whereas mine are bottom mounted.

Ill second an update on how the sight glass hold up in the boiler, I have all the parts for one but never installed it after thinking about how it may discolour. The one on my HLT was originally plumbed like yours but I found i couldnt get an accurate run off so I made it separate. Although mine is all made out of the cheapest [arts I can find, not SS. It certainly looks good! Was that a pre-bought sight glass or did you just order the parts separately?

[chastuck]

looking good! Love the skirt idea looks really good. When I finally upgrade to a larger version (keep telling myself not for some time) I may go down this route. I like the elements on the side too whereas mine are bottom mounted.

Ill second an update on how the sight glass hold up in the boiler, I have all the parts for one but never installed it after thinking about how it may discolour. The one on my HLT was originally plumbed like yours but I found i couldnt get an accurate run off so I made it separate. Although mine is all made out of the cheapest [arts I can find, not SS. It certainly looks good! Was that a pre-bought sight glass or did you just order the parts separately?

I bought all the parts separately from various sources. Had to buy a 2M length of polycarbonate tube, but have used it all now so quite economical.

[chastuck]

Definately a market for the element shrouds, ur friend in Ireland want to make anymore?

This has been discussed quite a lot in these forums. They are made by Mid Cork Metalworks Ltd. Email: sales@midcorkmetal.ie. Cost varies according to demand, but I paid £62.75 for four including delivery.

[barneey]

If you have a look at the Malt Miller site http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... ductId=286 your see the JG fittings required, 2 x elbows from BES or similar, + length of pipe http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... ductId=285= sight tube. You can buy tube in 3m lengths elsewhere use what you want and sell the rest on (bought 12m = sold the rest on here)

Malt Miller does a kit of bits http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... mit=%C2%A0

or another supplier http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... s_kit.html

[barneey]

Definately a market for the element shrouds, ur friend in Ireland want to make anymore?

This has been discussed quite a lot in these forums. They are made by Mid Cork Metalworks Ltd. Email: sales@midcorkmetal.ie. Cost varies according to demand, but I paid €62.75 for four including delivery.

Thanks for the link, must have missed the posts for em, been looking for a while for shrouds

Cheers