Spike Brewing Kettle - New Sight Glass Design

[SpikeBrewing]

If you send one to me I will give you plenty of feedback.

You missed out! We have about 10 'in the field' getting tested right now. Next step production (finally!)

[Stinkfist]

If you send one to me I will give you plenty of feedback.

Send me 3 of them and I will give you tons of feedback lol

[mmurray]

How are the glasses holding up? And how are you sealing them in each of the fittings?

I did a very similar design on my keggles for the same reasons you posted, but what I found when removing them for cleaning the edges of the pyrex were chipping from being in contact with the stainless fitting. As a result, I had to worry about glass shards in my beer. Afterward, I decided to put a silicone O-ring in the base of the fitting to reduce the glass to stainless steel contact and it seemed to work better. With that said, I eventually scratched the pyrex because they are much more delicate to handle and the ends that are in the fittings (mine were 1/2" ID fitting and 1/2" OD pyrex tubes) would break off rather easily with any slight pull that wasn't directly up when removing. Understand, I wasn't trying to pull them out at some strange angle, just if I wasn't careful to go directly up and do it slowly the pyrex would crack or completely break off and I'd have to dig it out.

For me it was a great idea thinking about the heat issue etc. but in practice it just wasn't worth having to constantly worry about small pieces of glass in my beers.

If you have some design that prevents all of that, I may very well be interested in going back to glass in the future so please discard or dispel any/all of the issues I brought up.

Cheers,
Mark

[SpikeBrewing]

We had the same problem you had. Even bought the Silcone o-rings to put in the elbows (great minds think alike I guess ). Anyways we talked to some glass experts and now all the glass is flame polished. It rounds the edges and makes them stronger; no more chipping!

We looked at polycarb too but it doesn't work with the push to connect fittings. We like the glass better because it doesn't have the heat restrictions the polycarb does.

[kilndoc]

This looks fantastic. I deal with heat transfer and burners on Ceramic and glass kilns. Using pyrex (borosilicate glass) is a no-brainer...easy to clean and sterilize.

The flame reflector is so smart as well. Great design. Can't wait to see how it works when you come out with it.

[mmurray]

Awesome! If I run into problems with my polycarbonate tubes could i buy just the glass from you seeing as how I already have all the other parts done?

Here is what I did.


I have a 1/2" Stainless Swaglok 90 with compression fitting. I silver soldered the copper coupling to the stainless conpression nut. Now I put two 3/8" silicone O-rings around the base of the tube and hand tighten the compression fitting just enough to seal it from leaks. Then I slide over it a piece of 1/2" rigid copper tubing with a cap to protect the glass. All of the copper above the coupling that is soldered is simply slip fit so I can easily break it down for cleaning.

Does it look like your pyrex glass would work with this setup?

[mmurray]

And if you're wonderign about the O-rings along the tubing... I put those on there to set my water marks etc... You can't see it in the picture, but I have my gallon markings on the copper tubing, So if I need 12 gallons total water I run an o-ring to the 12 gallon mark, then the 2nd one would (on the HLT) would mark the level minus what I transfer to the mash tun and the final one would mark the water level to end my sparge. Likewise, on my Boil Kettle they are used to mark preboil volume and post boil mark. Just make spotting my levels easier.

[SpikeBrewing]

Depends. What size 90 are you using? We will be going with a 3/8" OD piece of glass.