Hard Plumbing?
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:14 am
by 3G_
I have recently upgraded from brass fittimg to stainless stell including stainless steel camlock fittings. They are great but i now am interested in a fully plumbed stainless tube system with some of those tri-clamp fittings, similar to the Sabco brew magic. Who here has gone in this direction and is it worth the extra? Do you get any trouble priming you March pumps?
Cheers
Gregg
Re: Hard Plumbing?
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:06 pm
by Mylo
I hard plumbed 90% of my new sculpture with copper and stainless ball valves (just small silicone jumpers). I did manage to see a Sabco at NHC - and it is pretty bad ass. However, unless you are Doc - the money and effort won't yield that much better of a solution than just the copper can. As far as priming is concerned - just put a stainless "T" and two ball valves on the output side of each pump. One is used as the flow control, and one is the purge valve. That way you can get the head wet (YEAH...) and purge the air from the input side.
Many say (anecdotally, perhaps) that you need to orient the output above the input - but I say that is not completely necessary. As long as you can drain enough wort to completely purge the air from the input side - and fill the pump head - it won't matter. I still manually purge most of the air from my silicone before I hook it up to the pump - because the dip tubes will hold some air in a vapor lock - even with a "purge valve" as discribed above.
Mylo
Re: Hard Plumbing?
Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:03 pm
by 3G_
Mylo wrote:I hard plumbed 90% of my new sculpture with copper and stainless ball valves (just small silicone jumpers). I did manage to see a Sabco at NHC - and it is pretty bad ass. However, unless you are Doc - the money and effort won't yield that much better of a solution than just the copper can. As far as priming is concerned - just put a stainless "T" and two ball valves on the output side of each pump. One is used as the flow control, and one is the purge valve. That way you can get the head wet (YEAH...) and purge the air from the input side.
Many say (anecdotally, perhaps) that you need to orient the output above the input - but I say that is not completely necessary. As long as you can drain enough wort to completely purge the air from the input side - and fill the pump head - it won't matter. I still manually purge most of the air from my silicone before I hook it up to the pump - because the dip tubes will hold some air in a vapor lock - even with a "purge valve" as discribed above.
Mylo
Cheers, i still see brewing as a cheap hobby and love the building side as much as brewing.