On my 16th birthday, I got my driver's license. I begged my mom to let me take the car for a spin, as I am sure a lot of teenagers do when they get their license. She reluctantly said yes. I went out to my friend's farm to meet up and look at horses and various farm things. Later, we left the farm and headed back to my place. I was following my friend, and of course, we were both mostly driving like jackasses. My friend, who had a relatively large lead, took a quick right down a dirt/rock road, and unbeknownst to me, immediately stopped and turned off his lights. So then I come barreling around the same corner as quickly as he did, and BAM, there he was. I slammed on my breaks, but alas, it was too late, and I slid right into the back of his truck with my mom's car. Needless to say she was unhappy. I did not drive her car again for quite some time, when ironically, the same car became mine. I later totaled the car 600 miles from home in St. Louis.
When I chew small pieces of gum, I usually chew two at a time, but rather than mix the two pieces together to create a larger piece, I keep them separated in my mouth, never allowing them to touch. I am not sure why I do this, it is subconscious. I tend to chew gum all the time, so sometimes these two separate pieces will be in my mouth for many hours, then moments before I am ready to part ways with the gum, I will smash them together to form a single piece, and then deposit them.
So back to the Brutus clone build. I have made two upgrades to the system. First I added some flame shields around the burners. I found this necessary because during recent testing, I found that the wind was causing inefficiencies. Additionally, I am hoping that the rings will direct the heat directly towards the bottom of the kegs, and deflect heat away from the frame, because I found that the frame of the contraption gets extraordinarily hot after the burners have been going for a while. I am sure this is just part of the process, but I don't like it, and if I can defeat it, its a win.
So I considered building the rings out of steel, but the size pieces I was going to need was going to be less than cost effective. Plus, I really have no way of making a perfectly round piece of steel. After scouring the interwebness for a while, I came across someone else facing the same challenge, so I decided to employ their method for achieving the same goal. The answer? Cake rings! They make cake rings out of relatively thin gauge stainless steel, and, they are adjustable. Awesome! The only issue was that I had to cut a notch in them to allow my igniters to still be in place. A few minutes with my trusty roto-tool and that issue was a thing of the past. Here are a few pics.
The next upgrade was not necessary, but I nice thing to have at a very low price point. How do you know how much liquid is in your vessels? Well, you really don't, so to solve this, I added vinyl numbering decals to my sight glasses. Here is how that looks.
Also, I scored some cheapo stainless steel lids for like 12 bucks each off amazon.com.
I am so close to being done now I can taste it.
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