StillSmart

First of all hi from Ireland. I have two kegs coming(legit from brewery) to me of which one of them i can unscrew the spear and screw it back in upside down. Do ye think this is an ok idea? I have seen a vid of this on youtube and it seems a pretty good way of doing things?

You then attach a copper elbow to top of upturned spear and proceed from there with the rest. Now in the vid no solder was used to aid in quick and easy breakdown. This is another factor i find appealing. I believe a flour paste can be used to temporarily seal joints when doing a run?

Anyway the keg that i am getting is your typical 50 litre ss keg from over here. My question is whats the best and most efficient way to heat it? Propane or internal element?

Washes are likely to be around 30 litre mark each time so what would be best? The fermentation side is sorted equipment wise as i home brew anyway but currently only kit and kilo. However i have had difficulty sourcing materials this side of the pond. I would love to be able to just by a ready made piece and clamp it to top of my keg and thats it done. However as i said nothing around here.

I am going to attempt making my own first and if it does not work out i can always convert it to a hlt for all grain.

maybe this will give you an idea
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1858

as for using propane eek i wouldnt bother i stick with electric
element to boil it up

Fair enough magnu but why not propane? If these two kegs arrive and are as expected then my build will be easier no doubt. However i can see potential advantages to both ways of heating. One big advantage to using an element is you immediately have a hlt for all grain beer brewing.

if you use the still in a confined space and using propane then its BOOOOMMMM time,a lot of the guys who have a keg for a still on here use electric element
rather then propane

I am lost why would it be boom time? unless you have a leak or are careless in which case you should not be using propane anyway. I imagine propane is a lot cheaper on a full 30 litre run?

Actually I think propane might be more expensive, given gas prices on our little island!

Unless you intend running your still outdoors I'd forget using gas to heat the boiler

Here's a post of the main details of my build viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1858 you can PM me if you need anything else.

BTW, welcome to our little circle

AM

Fair enough aidanmac, i thought the leccy was dearer is all. Makes more sense as when i go all grain on my beer brewing i will be using some of the same equioment and that will be all electric anyway.

Raw cost is not the only thing to consider. A standard ring main here in the UK (I guess IRE is the same??) is a 20amp circuit.

So if you're plugging in using a 13amp plug the largest element you can go is 3KW.
Also if you're in an out building, you'll need to make sure the wiring is adequate. I know of some folks running dedicated 2x 20amps circuits to the garage to run a 6kw pot still.

Its fairly easy to chuck a load of heat at something with gas and a HP regulator, where upgrading the lecky supply could be more costly.
If you have a well ventilated out building, gas might be better (quicker heat up times), if indoors then lecky is the only way to go IMHO.

Well then that has decided it captain. I can only do inside as i have no out buildings. I have a dedicated brew room inside(spare room lol) so it will be on in there. That being said does that mean i will have to upgrade the sockets or something to run my still on leccy ?

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DullahanBrewing wrote:.....That being said does that mean i will have to upgrade the sockets or something to run my still on leccy ?

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You should be okay, but you are limited to the size of element you can use. What I was trying to say is with gas you can throw a lot of power at it for warm up, where with an electric keg you are limited with the supply you have in the house 13amp.

You can use a 2 or 3Kw element and the warm up time could be something like 1.5h.

good luck with your build.

One advantage i can see with electric over gas is that so long as bill is paid electric is always ready.