Gate valve supplier

I'm looking for some gate valves for flow control of my 2 March pumps. Does anyone have a good supplier for them? I've found plenty of sites on Google but was hoping to find an actual homebrew supplier that had them.

Also, everything in my system is currently stainless...is it worth it to buy stainless gate valves instead of brass, or does brass not really matter? I've heard mixed opinions...some people swear by stainless, others don't seem to see a difference with brass.

Try Mcmaster-Carr. Fairly inexpensive and good turnaround. Try not to mix metals, bad idea in the long run.

I know little about gate valves what is the advantage over the standard ball valve?

Try discover valve.com, I just picked up 3 for my burners.

I picked up 304ss gate valves on eBay for cheap.

I just used the brass ones from Home Depot

Brass and stainless don't react with each other so there's no problem mixing. But brass is getting super expensive and so to keep cost down they mix in other junk with the brass. In light of this I would not use it. I picked up 3 of these gate valves on eBay: http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=120847146898&index=15&nav=SEARCH&nid=18898328853. Actually 316ss sweet!

bad67z said:

I know little about gate valves what is the advantage over the standard ball valve?

Click to expand...

For a Beer setup, it depends on what you are using them for. However I have used both for lots of different applications.

Gate valves have a gate that slides up and down to control the flow. They are better at controlling the flow through them. They have a more precise controllability. They have a lot of nooks and crannys to clean so you'd have to take them apart to clean them thoroughly.

Ball valves have an internal ball with a hole in it to control the flow. They are great for fast on /off control, but not as good at partial control of the fluid. They are easier to clean if you get the three piece type.

What's wrong with a globe valve? If your purpose is to throttle/control flow rates, a globe valve is much easier/more predictable and repeatable than a gate valve under similar conditions. Have people had sanitation issues? Off to the Web for answers...

Globe valves provide finer control, but due to the chamber design there are all kinds of places to trap stuff.


Gate valves are essentially "chamberless" so trapping should be less of an issue, but they aren't all that much better than a ball valve for regulation.


Ball valves aren't all that great at regulation, and the hollow "sphere" used in a ball valve will retain anything that was present at the time it was closed. So one should definitely do a full-flow post-use cleaning flush.


In summary, I don't see much if any advantage using a gate valve over a ball valve in brewing applications, and I would never put a globe valve in any sanitary system...

Cheers!

Thanks for the great pictorial day_tripper, I had a pretty good idea of the mechanics of the valves but your diagrams brought it all together. I agree with you conclusion and will be sticking with my ss ball valves on my system.

The advantage of a gate valve is very similar to why you'd use a regulator instead of a needle valve if you need very fine flame control. You get much better flow control with a gate valve because each turn is a small amount of movement on the gate as opposed to a ball valve that in a quarter turn is full open. If you want to open the ball just a bit than it's a very small movement that sometimes is difficult to do. Same thing with a regulator - many turns to fully open as opposed to a few on a needle.

Thank you everyone for the information! I thought I was decided on stainless gate valves, but now that I see they're $50.00 a piece, I think I might end up sticking with the much cheaper ball valves. I wish I could try someones pump-fed system locally to see for myself what flow regulation is like.

Anyways, speaking of mixing metals, I have jamil's recirculation wort chiller from MoreBeer which will be recirculating the wort through a copper arm and what appears to be a brass FPT fitting. With everything else being stainless, it appears I'll have 3 types of metal if I'm correct about the brass fitting. Is mixing brass, stainless and copper a problem?