Bottom Drain - Sanke Valve on Top or Welded into the Bottom

I have three kegs for my new rig and have decided to go bottom drain on all three. Now I am trying to figure out if it makes more sense to flip them over and use the sanke valve or keep them right side up and just add a drain to the bottom.

Any thoughts or pros/cons?

Depends if you are going gas or electric.

The advantage to flipping the kegs is that a 2" tri-clamp fitting will fit nicely on the sankey neck, so there's no need to build a bulkhead fitting. The nice thing about leaving the kegs upright is that you'll still have the handles on top for maneuvering the kegs around.

I don't see how going gas or electric makes any difference between two kegs that are both bottom drain. If you plan on gas firing a bottom drain vessel, either make sure that the drain doesn't have any incline whatsoever, or you'll need to be very diligent about making sure to purge the air from the plumbing before firing the burner up. DAMHIKT.

Sorry should have mentioned that I will be going electric.

The tri-clamp is certainly an easy option but silver soldering in a welding spud seems pretty straight forward as well. Have the handles is certainly a benefit but I also like the idea of having a mice big opening for clean out of the MLT.

I had my machinist at work tap a 3/4" FPT hole in a 2" tri-clover cap to thread a nipple and ball valve into. Looking back, I should have gone to a 1" ball valve and hole to better flow the tremendous break material and hop debris that I get from my 6-row recipes. All-in-all it works really well though.

I am building my brewery on bottom drains. The only disadvantage I can see is that the boil kettle will be bottom drain. Screening out the trub is a little more dificult due to the fact that you can not whirlpool and drain. I plan to remidy this by recirculating my wort through my hop spider for a few minutes to catch hot break and any hop matter that escaped my strainer bag.

Huaco said:

I am building my brewery on bottom drains. The only disadvantage I can see is that the boil kettle will be bottom drain. Screening out the trub is a little more dificult due to the fact that you can not whirlpool and drain. I plan to remidy this by recirculating my wort through my hop spider for a few minutes to catch hot break and any hop matter that escaped my strainer bag.

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That's a good idea. I was planning to go the hop spider route as well and a few minutes of recirculation makes a lot if sense. How are you setting your bottom drains up?

At this point I am leaning towards putting in a 1" FNPT into the bottom of a keg.

I drain off my wort through the side of the keggle to leave most of the hop debris and break material in the keggle and then use the bottom dump to CIP.

Tom_FL said:

That's a good idea. I was planning to go the hop spider route as well and a few minutes of recirculation makes a lot if sense. How are you setting your bottom drains up?

At this point I am leaning towards putting in a 1" FNPT into the bottom of a keg.

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You honestly don't want to go too big on your drain. I plan to just stay with 1/2" fittings. If you go too big, you will start to have channeling issues through the mash in your MLT.

I plan to build my outputs as follows:

-HOLE IN BREW STAND TOP
-SANKE SPEAR HOLE
-2" TRICLAMP SILICONE GASKET w/ONE SIDE TRIMMED FLAT (very easy to do with a razor blade)
-2" TRICLAMP CLAMP
-2" TRICLAP TO 1/2"NPTF ADAPTER
-2" LONG 1/2 PIPE NIPPLE
-1/2" BALL VALVE
-(WHAT ERVER QUICK CONNECT YOU CHOSE)
-SILICONE HOSE TO PUMP

Huaco said:

You honestly don't want to go too big on your drain. I plan to just stay with 1/2" fittings. If you go too big, you will start to have channeling issues through the mash in your MLT.

I plan to build my outputs as follows:

-HOLE IN BREW STAND TOP
-SANKE SPEAR HOLE
-2" TRICLAMP SILICONE GASKET w/ONE SIDE TRIMMED FLAT (very easy to do with a razor blade)
-2" TRICLAMP CLAMP
-2" TRICLAP TO 1/2"NPTF ADAPTER
-2" LONG 1/2 PIPE NIPPLE
-1/2" BALL VALVE
-(WHAT ERVER QUICK CONNECT YOU CHOSE)
-SILICONE HOSE TO PUMP

Click to expand...

Huaco,

I'm thinking about putting bottom drains on all three kegs of my rig. Did you end up completing the bottom drains on yours? If so, I'm curious how it's working. What did you use as a screen for the BK? Pros and cons for all three kettles?

Yep, 1/2 drain in the bottom is the way to go. That's what I have on my keg mash tun. Zero deadspace. If I were to go to an electric brew kettle I'd worry about draining the hop debris and break material out of the bottom. A side drain may be the better option there.

My boil keggle is bottom drain with the tri-clover on the neck of the keg (1/2" piping). I use Jaybird's 15" level three false bottom. Works great, easy to clean (toss it in the dishwasher after rinsing) and no more hop spiders to clean. Electric BTW.

Cioffi said:

Huaco,

I'm thinking about putting bottom drains on all three kegs of my rig. Did you end up completing the bottom drains on yours? Yes If so, I'm curious how it's working. great What did you use as a screen for the BK? see picture. I ordered this hop screen from StainlessBrewing.com It's awesome! Pros and cons for all three kettles? Pros: EASY CLEAN UP. ZERO dead space in the MLT. Easy clean up... did I mention how easy it is to clean the keggles? Cons: some hot break gets in with the wort. Not a big deal really.

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Jon73 said:

Yep, 1/2 drain in the bottom is the way to go. That's what I have on my keg mash tun. Zero deadspace. If I were to go to an electric brew kettle I'd worry about draining the hop debris and break material out of the bottom. A side drain may be the better option there.

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I have actually recirculated the wort through the hop strainer for a little while to catch the hot break. With such a large surface area on the strainer, it does a pretty good job of it before getting too clogged with break material.

HawkATP said:

My boil keggle is bottom drain with the tri-clover on the neck of the keg (1/2" piping). I use Jaybird's 15" level three false bottom. Works great, easy to clean (toss it in the dishwasher after rinsing) and no more hop spiders to clean. Electric BTW.

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^^^^ how does this work with pellet hops?

Quote:
Originally Posted by HawkATP
My boil keggle is bottom drain with the tri-clover on the neck of the keg (1/2" piping). I use Jaybird's 15" level three false bottom. Works great, easy to clean (toss it in the dishwasher after rinsing) and no more hop spiders to clean. Electric BTW.

^^^^ how does this work with pellet hops?


I only use hop pellets, and the false bottom catches all the hops that I typically had in my previously used nylon 5 gallon bag paint strainer bag.

Huaco said:

I have actually recirculated the wort through the hop strainer for a little while to catch the hot break. With such a large surface area on the strainer, it does a pretty good job of it before getting too clogged with break material.



^^^^ how does this work with pellet hops?

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Wow! Thanks for the update - awesome set up.

Cioffi said:

Wow! Thanks for the update - awesome set up.

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No problem man. Here is a picture of my plumbing setup. The bottom drains go THROUGH the brew bench. I reinforce the cut holes with an in-sink-erator flange. These are just chrome plated.

The protected hole


The plumbing


Here is everything put together.


The flange top will probably interfere with the triclamp by a few thousandths of an inch. This is not really too much of an issue.