DIY Wort Pickup Tube from BYO Mag

I was thinking about building one of these valves but was concerned about galvanic corrosion from the copper of the pickup tube and stainless of my keggle. Is this an issue or is teflon tape between the 2 enough to prevent this from happening?

I don't get the mag, but I did catch a fellow youtuber's description of it. Sounds kinda lame to me. Is it the one that involves a tee and some pipe caps? Too small of a pickup hole means potential clogging.

There's no problem with copper to stainless connections that I can see so far.

what would be a better design for a pickup tube?

i'm also wondering about SS to copper in general as I'm thinking about getting a SS quick disconnect to hook my keg spigot directly to my copper CF chiller?

Like Bobby said the small holes are bad. My first attempt at a pickup tube was similar though with only one pickup unlike theirs that has a T and 2 pickups. I found that having the hole was too restrictive with my pump and was prone to clogging. I removed the cap totally and had much better luck.

Even with 2 pickups with the caps would probably be too restrictive if you use a pump. Maybe if your just using gravity it would be ok, but I'd want it to be as open as possible.

I saw saw the article, it seemed like they were making it more complicated than it needed to be. I just made a 90* copper tube down to the bottom with about 1/8" clearance from the bottom. I used a brass compression fitting from lowes to mount it. Simple and gets the job done. If you want it to filter the wort, devise some sort of hop stopper. I just use the common paint strainer setup most folks around here use and that keeps hop debris out of my wort. But I still pull in the cold break.

The 90 degree seems easiest. So no one has problems with the copper reacting with the SS and corroding?

I personally haven't. If you are worried about it, you could go all stainless.

good call, forgot that you can get stainless elbows and such

I also thought the end caps were a bit off and would restrict flow. Why not just put a SS choreboy on the end and be done with it?

I don't use stainless but I've not had problems with my copper dip tube into my aluminum kettle. I don't receive BYO so I haven't seen their design, but I went for the simple approach with mine and it works extremely well.

They don't come much easier than this.

Mine look the same except the one on my BK doesn't go to the center. I stop it about 2" away for the keg edge to leave a place for gunk to settle.

Though this is a cross-post and the OP here is an associate of mine I figured I'd stick up the photo of my pickup tube that I built today in case anyone wants to copy it.

Nice job.

That's like mine but I use a 45° elbow and a scrubby instead of the T piece
There is no way my wort would drain through those holes without being filtered first.

Basically, the BYO one is a T with 90 degree elbows and ~3" extensions pointed to the edge (under the valve).

Two things : In the article it addresses the OPTION of using caps -- or not. I chose not. Also, it refers to an article in the magazine regarding whirlpooling, which is why the tips are set at the edge of the pot.

I would imagine that this might be different in a Keggle.

Let me ask y'all this. Why use SS ball valves if you are going with a copper dip tube? Seems that you might as well use copper or brass for everything. Am I missing something....I usually am

You're forgetting the 'bling' factor.

balto charlie said:

Let me ask y'all this. Why use SS ball valves if you are going with a copper dip tube? Seems that you might as well use copper or brass for everything. Am I missing something....I usually am

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This was a question I asked myself -- right before I went out and bought brass ball valves at Home Depot for ~$6 per. Brass and copper are good enough for my rig.

As for the question about galvanic corrosion, I wouldn't worry about it much. Metallurgists and engineers sometimes use a term called the "Anodic Index" to compare the corrosion potentials of real materials. It's similar to the EMF series you may remember from chemistry classes, but a little more broad in scope.

Copper has an anodic index in the neighborhood of 0.35 V. 18% chromium stainless has an Anodic index of ~0.5 V.

For aggressive environments such as seawater and outdoor applications, a difference of 0.15 volts is tolerable. For less agressive conditions, a difference of up to 0.5 volts can be tolerated, although 0.25 volts is a safer figure. Therefore, it shouldn't be a big problem while brewing (this is borne out by experience), and if stored properly (dry), there isn't any galvanic potential.

Therefore, don't sweat it. Copper and brass fixtures on a stainless kettle won't have serious corrosion problems under homebrewing conditions.

bradsul said:

You're forgetting the 'bling' factor.

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silly me. I am making your dry stout this week. I'll post up when I taste it.

balto charlie said:

Let me ask y'all this. Why use SS ball valves if you are going with a copper dip tube? Seems that you might as well use copper or brass for everything. Am I missing something....I usually am

Click to expand...

I'm of the opinion that brass valves and copper drain tubes will work. I have no issues with either. I actually use a gas valve on my brew keggle since I uses a CFC. I don't need massive flow and I already had it sitting around.

thanks for all the great thoughts. i decided to go with a mix of copper and stainless....i'll post my blinged keggle once its done

orfy said:

They don't come much easier than this.

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Orfy,

This is how I have done my dip tube in the past, but I have never once been able to drain my wort out with out a clog or losing my siphon. I have had this trouble with both pellet and whole hops. I'm not crazy about using a paint strainer, due to the drop in hop utilization. How are you draining your keggle?

Any advice.

Thanks

I'm not orfy, but my rig looks almost exactly the same. I've had no problems with whole hops, or a mix of whole and pellet. How much clearance do you have between the bottom of the dip tube and the keg bottom? I leave about 3/8 inch under mine.

As for losing siphon, that leads me to think you have a joint somewhere in there that's leaking air and breaking your vacuum.

here is how my pickup turned out...worked pretty well for the first run.

Never had a problem.
I just open the tap and it goes.
You obviously need a tube from the spigot that is way lower than the bottom of the pick up tube. I don't understand how it can clog with the scrubbie.
I've recently used this with pellets.