False bottom question

Hey everyone I really need some help with using my new false bottom for a keggle. I tested it today with water and it didn't seem to get a good suction when I opened the valve. As soon as the level of water gets below the valve or bulkhead fitting it doesn't drain at all. Can anyone help? I'm worried that it'll drain but leave about 1 gallon still in the keggle with all the grain on top.

steveo929 said:

Hey everyone I really need some help with using my new false bottom for a keggle. I tested it today with water and it didn't seem to get a good suction when I opened the valve. As soon as the level of water gets below the valve or bulkhead fitting it doesn't drain at all. Can anyone help? I'm worried that it'll drain but leave about 1 gallon still in the keggle with all the grain on top.

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Just guessing here, but I can see that if you didn't have the outlet end of your drain tube beneath the surface of your wort in the container you were draining into, it could let air into the outlet end of the tube and break the siphon as soon as the wort level in the keggle dropped below the valve.

EDIT: One thing that might contribute to this is if the valve was wide open and the flow into the input of the dip tube in the keggle was not enough to keep the output tube full.

Hmm, yes that might be right. I didn't have a tube attached to the outlet barb so that makes more sense now. I'll try it out. Any other suggestions though?

No other suggestions needed. You need the hose on the drain to pull the liquid down/out and create a vacuum of sorts.
OK, I lied, you may be sucking in air somewhere, but my bet is on not using tubing on your test.

Kilted Brewer said:

OK, I lied, you may be sucking in air somewhere, but my bet is on not using tubing on your test.

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This would be my guess as well. There wouldn't seem to be much of a vacuum effect without the tube attached.

agreed. As long as the end of the tubing is lower than the end of the inlet it should work.

Cool, and while we're on the topic...I'm going to have the same problem with my boil kettle. I'm using a bazooka tube looking thing from Northern brewer as a hop filter. It comes out straight from the valve so it's about 3 inches from the bottom...that's a lot of liquid that will be left. Should I add an L bend to the inner bulkhead fitting to extend it to the bottom? Is there an easier way?

You definitely want to have some kind of siphon tube for any kind of keg based vessel.