Keggle ball valve placement?

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poislb

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Where are your guys putting your ball valve in your keggles. Between the handles or in direct line of one of the handles for tipping? Im Doing a keggle project and not sure whats best. I see blichmann has there theremometer and valve in direct line of there handles, kinda wanted to do the same for a keggle, but wasnt sure if its the correct way or not. Any advice would be great..
 
Here is part two of Yuri's keggle conversion. It is a great depiction of what many of us do to lay out our holes.

 
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I'm inclined to say go higher than what your natural instinct tells you. Drill too low and you'll be screwed because you won't have a flat spot on the inside to mount your valve hardware to.
 
I see he went between the handles, I was thinking of the handle facing the same direction as your valve. This way it would be easier to tip forward to collect more wort.

I guess the question is do people mount the valve in line with the handle or centered of the 2 handles...

If i did what he did in the video the vents on the bottom will not be centered to the ball valve, looks goofy..
 
One thing to consider is the vent holes at the bottom. You don't want the heat wash burning up the plastic ball valve handles or messing with your thermometer. So you may not be able to line everything up perfectly centered in relation to your handles. It depends as each keg's holes are a little different. Just saying.........
 
Granted the ball valve is on the floor but these are the options to consider, which one do most people do for placement? The valve in line with the handle or the valve centered to both handles. Only have one shot, I wanna make it right.

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My valve is centered between the bottom vents, and in line with the handle. (your pic. #2) The sight glass and thermometer are 90° from the valve. I don't have to tip it to collect wort but when carrying through a doorway it's less likely to hit the thermometer/ sight glass and just bounce off the valve if you get careless. Nice looking keg you got there.
 
I see he went between the handles, I was thinking of the handle facing the same direction as your valve. This way it would be easier to tip forward to collect more wort.

I guess the question is do people mount the valve in line with the handle or centered of the 2 handles...

If i did what he did in the video the vents on the bottom will not be centered to the ball valve, looks goofy..

Dip tube! No tipping needed... Easy to make with a brass compression fitting and a chunk of copper tube. Or order one in stainless from one of the HBT vendors. Just as long as you have tubing connected to the ball valve running lower than the bottom of the kettle it will siphon almost all the liquid. Depending on how you set it up you can to leave behind less than an 1/8" of liquid.
 
Dip tube! No tipping needed... Easy to make with a brass compression fitting and a chunk of copper tube. Or order one in stainless from one of the HBT vendors. Just as long as you have tubing connected to the ball valve running lower than the bottom of the kettle it will siphon almost all the liquid. Depending on how you set it up you can to leave behind less than an 1/8" of liquid.

I ordered the whole blichmann weldless ball valve assembly, the same as ya see on there kettles. But it wont reach all the way to the center which is what i wanted so I didnt pick up all that hot/cold break and hop material..With the blichmann dip tube I expect to lose a 1/4 gallon which is fine. So i may have to tip a bit just to get a little more out..
 
My valve is centered between the bottom vents, and in line with the handle. (your pic. #2) The sight glass and thermometer are 90° from the valve. I don't have to tip it to collect wort but when carrying through a doorway it's less likely to hit the thermometer/ sight glass and just bounce off the valve if you get careless. Nice looking keg you got there.

Thanks, actually saw a scraper with this keg in the back of his truck while geting gas. I offered him more than what he would get at the yard so he sold it to me. I have a few hours in it cleaning it up but talk about self gradification..
 
I like the valve centered between the handles with the embossed lettering at the top of the keg facing out.
Dip tube for the win, or bottom draining nipple.
 
Anyone else like to chime in? In line with the handle (pic 2) or centered between handles (pic 1) i plan on drilling tonight. im just having a hard time deciding. Thanks in advance.
 
poislb said:
Anyone else like to chime in? In line with the handle (pic 2) or centered between handles (pic 1) i plan on drilling tonight. im just having a hard time deciding. Thanks in advance.

My vote is for between the handles. The reason being that when you go to move it around, like off of a stand for instance, it doesn't twist your body all up making you lift the majority of the keg with one arm. If your always lifting from a foot off the the ground it doesn't really matter, but from chest high, it makes a difference.

Even if you don't have a stand yet though, I've always been one to build stuff with future upgrades in mind.
 
Well here she is, blichmann valve assembly installed...I could have lowered the valve a bit but trying to figure out where the dip tube was gonna sit after the hole was drilled was a pita...at least for me anyway. With a sipfon and or a pump I should suck out everything but the trube, hopefully...Cant go back and lower it now...lol

I see guys put there dip tube off to the side to eliminate trube so I guess its in a good position for that. What ya think?

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Do you guys think the dip tube will be fine there. like said i could have gone lower but was a pain measureing up the blichmann dip tube.
 
poislb said:
Do you guys think the dip tube will be fine there. like said i could have gone lower but was a pain measureing up the blichmann dip tube.

Should be fine! Perfect for whirlpooling to keep the trub/hops out of your fermenter.
 
Just did a test run with a siphon. Drains all but .5 gallon. Id say thats about right and should leave all that junk behind. Any thoughts, is that to much to leave behind or is that good?
 
Actually its more like a .40 gallon loss or something like that. About 6 cups, a quart and a half was left behind..
 
poislb said:
Actually its more like a .40 gallon loss or something like that. About 6 cups, a quart and a half was left behind..

If you want to get more out, it's easy to tip the kettle at that point. I've done it plenty of times myself. Then again, I'm not scared of getting trub in my fermenter.
 
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