Critique my manifold design. Building this weekend. Suggestions appreciated.

I got a couple of round coolers and decided to build a manifold since I have some extra copper sitting around.

Just thought I'd post what I was planning to do on here before going through all the work and see if anyone had suggestions. Feel free to suggest changes and point out any potential problems you see with the design.

Thanks,


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looks ok to me. I think you can move the out tube (that you have all the way in the middle) and just connect to the outside. It will shorten the distance and there really isnt a need for it to go all the way to the middle.

See I had a rectangular cooler last time with a manifold. I had the "outlet" drawing from one end of the rectangular manifold and had obvious channeling at the end of the cooler closest to the ball valve. My though was that if I put it in the middle it would draw from the center and eliminate this problem.

In my previous cooler the hole was about 6 inches up the wall of the cooler so it relied on suction that get the liquid out which I am guessing contributed to my channeling problem.

Maybe this becomes less of an issue if you your ball valve is close to the bottom of the cooler and you run off slower to eliminate the "suction" effect?


I plan on batch sparging so I know channeling is pretty much a non-issue but while building it i would like to build it to accomodate fly sparging as well if I ever decide to do it I guess.

By the way I stole this idea from RonRock who gave me the idea in this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/manifold-design-10-gallon-round-cooler-165854/

I only slightly modified it.