Using Scales Instead Of A Sight Glass..

[Guysmiley54]

Good morning people,

I have been looking around for some higher capacity scales (mine only go to 3KG) to make it quicker when weighing my grain bill.

I found this one:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DIGITAL-KITCHEN...=item3a6f076d28

I'm also without a sight glass on my kettle and really would like to control my volumes more accurately. As it goes up to 40KG I'm wondering if it might be useful to measure strike water? (on single batches shouldn't neeed to weigh more than 35KG of water). With some blankets or some sort of heat sheild (I'm a one pot electric BIAB guy) I wonder how it would go to measure boil-off to give me an accurate reading of all my volumes (absorbsion, boil-off etc) on brewdays? The main worry is that the heat would be too much for the machine.

Anyone done this before out there?

 

[troopa]

Ive got the same scales although mine are nearly 4 years old now and i would recommend getting them as it makes a decent difference to the ease of the brew day plus they are battery operated which is a nice feature
I dont have a sight glass either and have used the scales once to measure stirke water until i realised it was easier to use in conjunction with a 600mm stainless ruler to calibrate my pot

But now i just use my ruler and this site and measure strike, pre boil and post boil measuments then do some simple maths to figure out my boil loss(or beersmith)

Click the link, Click the cylinder, add your radius/diameter in centimeters then your depth in centimeters and if you have worked out the and volume losses such as the radius at the bottom of the pot, element, pickup tube (which you could use the scales or a jug to help here) should give you a fairly accurate idea of how much water you need to add on your ruler

If anyones got a better site that would be great thanks

edit 2: Alright my interwebby searching skills are not good and after about 3 years of searching i found this site http://www.1728.org/verttank.htm which seems to be able to calculate dipstick measuments as well
I doubt anyone on this site will understand my frustration in finding an online volume calculator that measures in metric out puts to liters and is not a pain to use .. small things

 

[Guysmiley54]

Ive got the same scales although mine are nearly 4 years old now and i would recommend getting them as it makes a decent difference to the ease of the brew day plus they are battery operated which is a nice feature
I dont have a sight glass either and have used the scales once to measure stirke water until i realised it was easier to use in conjunction with a 600mm stainless ruler to calibrate my pot

But now i just use my ruler and this site and measure strike, pre boil and post boil measuments then do some simple maths to figure out my boil loss(or beersmith)

Click the link, Click the cylinder, add your radius/diameter in centimeters then your depth in centimeters and if you have worked out the and volume losses such as the radius at the bottom of the pot, element, pickup tube (which you could use the scales or a jug to help here) should give you a fairly accurate idea of how much water you need to add on your ruler

If anyones got a better site that would be great thanks

Stainless ruler is a good idea, I played around with making marks on a plastic mash paddle but gave up on that pretty quick.

Bunnings or Officeworks for a big stainless one like that?

 

[SJW]

I use scales now to measure my mash water since buying a new fermenter and comparing volumes by the marks on the fermenters I found out that one of them was out by 1 litre. Now I weigh all my water for the mash and sparge.

Steve

 

[QldKev]

For weighing the grain I use a set of these
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-40kg-x-20g-...=item3cba661fdf
$6 and works a treat, just hang them somewhere, hang a bucket and tare, then pour in the grain. Packs away easily at the end of brew day.


If you want you could even pay a lot more for the same ones
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/40kg-x-10g-LCD-...=item256ed9e493

or buy the forst ones for $6 and send me the other $30 :icon_chickcheers:


I tried getting rid of the need for a sight glass using a flow meter. The flow meter is now removed from the system. If you go the scales they are rated to 40kg, remember that includes the weight of the HLT itself. IMHO a simple sight glass works well. At the end of the day do what is best for you.





QldKev

 

[Phoney]

Ive got one of these: http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com.au/viewitem...nid=88563480514

Accuracy to within 50mL, I wouldnt use anything else. If your using an urn, touch the bottom of it next time its on, if it doesnt get hot (mine doesnt) then it can just sit on top sans insulation.

 

[benno1973]

I tried getting rid of the need for a sight glass using a flow meter. The flow meter is now removed from the system. If you go the scales they are rated to 40kg, remember that includes the weight of the HLT itself. IMHO a simple sight glass works well. At the end of the day do what is best for you.

Why'd you get rid of the flow meter Kev? And which sort were you using?

I have 2 flow meters that I haven't hooked up yet, so it would be good to know what problems you had before I go ahead with them.

 

[QldKev]

The one I used was This one

I found it varied in the accuracy, from 0 to 10% error. 10% error on 60L is 6L out so I gave up on it. Pitty since I also have the same one without the display I was going to use on my Audrino project.

QldKev

 

[Pat Casey]

Just as easy to measure grain by volume. 1 litre is about 600 grams. Check the accuracy of any measuring vessels by weighing a volume of water.

Pi R squared by the depth for liquid volumes. A one metre stainless ruler is nice. For wort at 100 deg divide by 1.04 for correct volume at 20 deg.

Pat

 

[QldKev]

Just as easy to measure grain by volume. 1 litre is about 600 grams. Check the accuracy of any measuring vessels by weighing a volume of water.

Pi R squared by the depth for liquid volumes. A one metre stainless ruler is nice. For wort at 100 deg divide by 1.04 for correct volume at 20 deg.

Pat

?

 

[WarmBeer]

Stainless ruler is a good idea, I played around with making marks on a plastic mash paddle but gave up on that pretty quick.

Bunnings or Officeworks for a big stainless one like that?

Only place I've seen them, and picked one up myself, is Supercheap Auto.

Got a feeler gauge at the same time to measure the gap in my mill.

 

[hsb]

FWIW I use a marked bucket to measure my strike water and also all my runnings, though I do have a Stainless ruler, I just find it easier.

I wish Robinox pots had volume calibrations on the inside though, plenty of SS cooking pots do, no idea why Robinox don't.

 

[Pat Casey]

?

A litre of malt weighs about 600 grams.

Pat

 

[matho]

I weigh my HLT for volume measurement shown here. It uses load cells out of a $20 set of electronic scales, I'm really happy with how it works. I have been thinking of adding load cells to the bottom of the braumiser to measure my water additions.

guysmiley it will work as long as it doesn't have an auto off feature because most of the time when scales turn back on they auto zero which would mean you will lose your measurement, if your worried about heat put a piece of plywood down. Remember that it will measure boil of well because that is just water but wort is heavier than water so for a volume measurement in the kettle you would have to know the gravity. I am also assuming you are using an electric kettle as it definitely won't work with gas.

cheers steve

 

[NickB]

A litre of malt weighs about 600 grams.

Pat

Which malt? BB Pale? Weyermann Boh Pils? BB Wheat? Simpsons Naked Golden Oats?

All irrelevant really, as we're after strike/mash/sparge water volumes, not grain volumes.

What point are you trying to make Pat?

Cheers

 

[Guysmiley54]

I weigh my HLT for volume measurement shown here. It uses load cells out of a $20 set of electronic scales, I'm really happy with how it works. I have been thinking of adding load cells to the bottom of the braumiser to measure my water additions.

guysmiley it will work as long as it doesn't have an auto off feature because most of the time when scales turn back on they auto zero which would mean you will lose your measurement, if your worried about heat put a piece of plywood down. Remember that it will measure boil of well because that is just water but wort is heavier than water so for a volume measurement in the kettle you would have to know the gravity. I am also assuming you are using an electric kettle as it definitely won't work with gas.

cheers steve

The auto off feature is something I had thought about already actually. I have emailed a couple of the Ebay guys to see if there are any models that will remain on.

I hadn't thought about the fact that wort is heavier than water though... I reckon after a few runs you would probably get a feel for any adjustments/allowances you would have to make.

 

[sama]

Thin bit of alluminium flat bar (say 2-3mm thick by 25mm wide)bend one end nicely over so it hooks onto lip of pot Mark it at litre or so increments and then engrave permanently. Hook on hook off.bunnings bought

 

[BobtheBrewer]

[quote(I'm a one pot electric BIAB guy)

I am assuming that you use an urn, if so what type? I use a 40L Crown urn with concealed element, and use a steel rule but not the sight glass. There is a formula on this site somewhere to calculate volume etc for one of these. If you happen to have one then I can give you the figures, otherwise you may need to do the hard yards with a 1 litre jug.

 

[stux]

The auto off feature is something I had thought about already actually. I have emailed a couple of the Ebay guys to see if there are any models that will remain on.

I hadn't thought about the fact that wort is heavier than water though... I reckon after a few runs you would probably get a feel for any adjustments/allowances you would have to make.

Specific gravity tells you how much heavier than water wort is

 

[mikec]

I suffer from this problem too.
So a dumb question maybe - why not just mark the inside of the pot with a permanent marker?
Would it wear off and/or poison the brew?