Tri Clover conversion

Spent the most of the morning today installing new TriClover fittings and new hosing, the brass OQ's where starting to wig me out, sticky wort makes them miserable to work with and I found a fair amount of chud hiding in the nooks .

I know there is another thread going boo on St.Pat's, but I ordered from them in the past an didn't have any issues , so I did again without hesitation. In three days I received everything in my order and shipped super fast. The best part is I saved almost $ 128 from competitors pricing.

Bye Bye Brass !

This was around $ 700 to covert , fU%^ that's allot !

Here's two shots, one before and one from today :

I spend $ 700 bucks on my brewery and no one has any comments ??

Not even , Hey that's a nice tile floor

w0w, now that you mention it, that is a nice tile floor.

O ya, by the way nice conversion and even nicer rig.

I think you may have undersold yourself with that thread title. Wow, I didn't even see the floor til the fourth pass.

I have about half what I need for going to tri-clover, but for now I am more than happy with QD's.

The tile floor is nice, but I am more interested in just what make of rig that is.

I still hate you for that pic of you and the trout.

700 dollars man I have to raise my prices.

Heck with the floor love the SS back splash

Dominus Vobiscum

Swagman

I spend $ 700 bucks on my brewery and no one has any comments ??

Not even , Hey that's a nice tile floor

Click to expand...

Sorry I am late
I was drinking beer with my neighbors all weekend.

Welcome to the tri-clover club, well done.


Cheers,
ClaudiusB

23 bags of grain worth of SS. hmmm, 23x50=1150/21lb avg=54 10G brews. Having used tri clover clamps, IMHO the overrated for all aspects except sanitation and flow. On the other hand you only need please yourself so congrats and I hope they are everything you want them to be.

mrbowenz, my apologies for drunken ramblings and obvious jealousy. That is one hell of a rig you have there. It is also a beautiful work of art. I hope that one day I will feel that my rig will deserve to sit next to yours.

I am also joining the tri-clover club. Hopefully I will have a stack to show off by next month.

Well done Monsieur Bowenz. A tip of the hat to you.

Very nice looking rig. I couldn't afford it but I like looking at them! Also I should tile my brew-room...

Hey nice floor.

cant see the pics here at work.

Dude, even before the fittings, that rig is fook%$& nasty. There is some tremendous talent on this site. Maybe we need to have a brew rig beauty competition with prizes etc. Dwain

P.S. nice floor, is that laminate?

There is some tremendous talent on this site.

Click to expand...

You absolutely correct.

Maybe we need to have a brew rig beauty competition with prizes etc. Dwain

Click to expand...

No bad or ugly systems exists, we all built our system based on our needs and requirements.

No equipment contest for me, beer yes

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

Nice rig. Are your tri-clover fittings compatible/interchangable with other manufacturer fittings? I am thinking of welding triclover to my kettles but am reluctant to do so if they are not standardized.

They are standardized if you stay with all "sanitary" fittings. There is another kind called "3E" or something like that with a different profile.

very nice, i like the look of the tri-clovers better, more steampunkish and thats a good thing.

ClaudiusB said:

You absolutely correct.



No bad or ugly systems exists, we all built our system based on our needs and requirements.

No equipment contest for me, beer yes

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

Click to expand...

I am not even in the league, there are two guys here(HBT) in particular that are real inspirations of technology to me, you Claudius are one, and Kevin Kladue is the other . But your right, there are no contests, only sharing what we have to work with, financially and because of marriage or time, I am a lucky guy with a great wife who allows me to work with my hobby to the fullest . Beer is why we are here, you don't need systems to make it, but if systems are what get's you excited ,share what you have learned and encourage others to follow their passions.

JVD_X said:

Nice rig. Are your tri-clover fittings compatible/interchangable with other manufacturer fittings? I am thinking of welding triclover to my kettles but am reluctant to do so if they are not standardized.

Click to expand...

If you choose to go to tri-clover, consider it best that you start with only 1/2"NPT couplings welded to the keg, and get tri-clover fittings that have 1/2"male NPT, so you are not married to the tri-clover system. You may want to change-back or sell your tuns, and it is best to leave yourself an out.

I am using all weldless tri-clover. You can check my rig build thread (sig) to see my schematic (go to the end of the long development stuff).

The only tri I offer as of now is the 1/2 FTP because of keeping the cost down. Also I feel without exposed thread are a possible of failure. The over all length with the FTP and a close nipple is not that much longer than a MPT.





God bless

Dominus Vobiscum

Swagman

OK, I am kicking it up a notch, just got home from installing my hose sleeving on my new hoses, I do a fair amount of electronics builds ( amps , speakers , audio ) so I used that knowlege to work on the brewery and came up with this :

This sleeving is made from PET , the silicon hosing that manyof us use always looks dirty and unclean on the outside, so I figured why not Franklinizing it with some hose bling ..what do you think ?, I love this stuff and it's pretty cheap :

Here's what it looks like :



On the roll :

Looks awesome! Will there be any issues with it getting too hot and melting?

conpewter said:

Looks awesome! Will there be any issues with it getting too hot and melting?

Click to expand...

I think not, the stuff is very rugged, I don't recirculate boiling wort, only one pass from the boil kettle to the heat exchanger for cooling, mash temps of 155 wouldn't do a thing to this stuff . I highly doubt even 212 wouldn't phase it.

Edit, I researched it, the melting temp is just under 600 degrees F, so good to go !

mrbowenz said:

I think not, the stuff is very rugged, I don't recirculate boiling wort, only one pass from the boil kettle to the heat exchanger for cooling, mash temps of 155 wouldn't do a thing to this stuff . I highly doubt even 212 wouldn't phase it.

Edit, I researched it, the melting temp is just under 600 degrees F, so good to go !

Click to expand...

Sweet.... where do I buy it?!

the silicon hosing that many of us use always looks dirty and unclean on the outside, so I figured why not Franklinizing it with some hose bling ..what do you th

Click to expand...

Great idea mrbowenz.

How hard will it be to keep the sleeves from accumulating dirt?


Cheers,
ClaudiusB

Looks pretty sweet, Chris!

Is that just microphone cable wrap?

It's general purpose cable management stuff, all kinds of electronic wiring applications.



I use mostly Mouser.com, but this stuff I bought from this company :
PET Expandable Braided Sleeving, Chemical Resistant Sleeving, Moisture Resistant Sleeving, Color Braided Sleeving



Since this is black sleeving, it couldn't be any worse than white unexposed silion tubing, it gives a nice finished look and feel to the hose too ( I think ?) Plus it's plastic, so I could wash it and or take a stiff brush to it as well .

Get rid of those hose clamps. they look ghetto next to everything else I use oetiker's for everything and they don't snag on everything.

Nice! I like it. I find that my silicone hose really picks up dust due to static. This sort of sleeve would help I think.

What size expandable sleeve did you use? Equally important: What's the OD of your silicone hose?

Kal

kal said:

Nice! I like it. I find that my silicone hose really picks up dust due to static. This sort of sleeve would help I think.

What size expandable sleeve did you use? Equally important: What's the OD of your silicone hose?

Kal

Click to expand...

That's a good question, I am not sure of the OD of the silicon hose, but the sleeving is pretty dynamic, choose the 1/2 diameter, and I think it will accommodate from 1/4 to 3/4 inch OD hose. What's cool, is the fact that there are many colors and weave patterns to choose from, I went with the black with yellow tracer, but there are all kinds of neon or blended colors too, you could also mix colors for hot (red) and (cold) blue if you wanted to. If my rig was stainless, I would have gone with stainless sleeve, yeah they make that too, but with a black stand, I went with black

I've actually gone with different colours of sleeve depending on what it's used for:

- Blue for the RTC (temp probe) cables
- Silver for the HLT and brew kettle power cables
- For hoses I wasn't going to do anything but after seeing yours I'm not so sure anymore.

The only downside to covering up the hose lines is that you can't see inside them anymore to see if there's a blockage. No biggee I suppose.

Thanks for the idea!

Kal

Sweet SS Backsplash Dude!

Another quick question:

What did you use to keep the ends of the expanding sleeve from fraying or coming apart? Just the hose clamps?

Kal

kal said:

Another quick question:

What did you use to keep the ends of the expanding sleeve from fraying or coming apart? Just the hose clamps?

Kal

Click to expand...

I have what they call a hot knife, I do cut it with a razorblade, but then melt it with the knife to keep it from fraying. I am looking into specialized clamps, but for now, the hose clamps are working fine.

Of course! Never thought of using a hot knife. Thanks!

Kal

Where did you get the fittings from? I've done a little shopping around and noticed there's quite a range of prices out there.