Brewering Rig concept - single tier with 1 march pump

So, now that I have acquired my 3 sankey kegs, it's time to get serious about building a functional rig. For various reasons, I would like to keep it as a single tier. I batch sparge. Maybe one day I will move to RIMS or HERMS, but for now, I'm working with the KISS principle.

I see a lot of people with single tier systems using 2 pumps, or using lots of quick disconnects. But, is there any reason why it couldn't be hard plumbed?



The green lines are input into the march pump, and the red are output. From left to right we have HLT, MLT, and Kettle. On either side of the March pump would be 3-way stainless ball valves.

So, any ideas? Do you see any problems with this design?

Cheers,

Rhino

I really like your plan and the idea of 3-way valves! I haven't seen that before.

You could still use soft tubing with that design if you didn't want the added expense and hassle of hard plumbing.

Where were you planning on sourcing the ball valves?

If you are hard plumbing it, how will you remove the kettles for cleaning? I think most people use the hoses and qd's to make cleaning easier. Pumping cleaner, rinse water and sanitizer through all those lines could become a pain. Then again, if you have a plan to move the soap from one kettle to another using the pumps, it may actually be easier so long as you don't forget a step along the way. Just a thought.

Haven't found a confirmed source yet (IE: a company that will sell direct to me).
But I do know that they exist, as they are sold by S&K automation .

If worst comes to worst, you could always use 2 ball valves with some sort of y-adapter, but obviously the 3-ways would be prefered.

If 2 more valves help you get the minimum order (if one is needed) let me know, I would like to get a set.

I like the idea, but I'd have to say that it's not THAT much simpler than using QD's.

First there's an issue of cost. Two male and 4 female QDs would be a lot less money than $180 for two 3-way ball valves: http://www.valvestore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=67408

A lot of us also want to pump out of the BK through a chiller so you'd need to splice in a TEE just prior to the pump for that and then you'd need to do the same on the output. You can quickly see how a bunch of QD's make it totally flexible. Where do you want liquid to come from and where do you want it to go to? Plug and play.

You COULD go with brass valves to bring the cost down and if you really need 4-ways like I've described, you can use two valves on the input and two on the output essentially selecting between three sources. It would require deliberate positioning of 4 valves for any one operation. Not so "KISS" anymore.

Along these lines, does anyone use female QD's as the ONLY way of stopping liquid flow out of a vessel? Traditionally you'd go bulkhead, ballvalve, then QD but I wonder what the failure rate of the QD is.

Bobby makes some good points, one thing to add is that 2 position ball valves are always open to one path. So you will always have either hot water or mash water sitting against the input of your march pump, etc

Hey Rhino, going through a build process right now in Ontario Canada. Did you ever find a source for your stainless valves up here? seems complicated to find the parts without paying an arm and a leg for them.

We are building a 3 keg herms setup with all stainless coil and connections with 1/2" everywhere to ensure no reduction in flow.