I bought an old keg from Starr Hill last year, and I still haven’t gotten the top cut off and the nipples welded on in order to turn it into a brewing pot (or keggle). I’ve ordered the parts and hopefully I will get this done next week.

I currently brew with a 7 gallon aluminum pot, which has been OK for many years, but it doesn’t give me a lot room for error when brewing a 5.5 gallon batch, and it doesn’t have a spigot so I’m always having to lift the pot up or siphon to get the wort out of it. The conversion of the keggle will give me a 15 gallon pot, the ability to simply pour the wort out, I can weld a thermometer permanently into the side of the keggle, and I’ll have just about everything except for the March pump to make a whirlpool chiller later in the year.

We’ll see what difference the keggle will make to my batches. Changing an element in your brewing set-up can cause some profound changes in the final beer. I expect that the evaporation rate will be higher from the boil, and I will have to sparge longer than usual in order to have the volume to lose. But that might bump up my efficiency, too.

We will see, but I had to drawn a line in the sand. And if I *can’t* brew until the keggle is done, then it will get done. Soon.