Main drain and whirlpool pickup tube

[hillbillyjones]

If you're whirlpooling the wort after boil, is the exit the main drain or is there a separate drain for the whirlpool?

I'm thinking it's the main drain. I think I'm seeing two ways of doing it on the inside.

1) A 90 elbow turned to the side with a 1/2" compression fitting with some 1/2" tubing trimmed to custom fit the kettle

2) A 90 elbow with a 1/2" barb fitting

The barb fitting seems at least 20 cheaper. What's the bonus of using the tubing and compression fitting?

As for in Kettle filtering, I see pics with nothing, or with the end of the tube stuck in a tea ball screen, or stainless steel pot scrubber. It seems like anything stuck on the end of a drain tube when combined with whirlpooling, it'd cause a lot of gunk to build up on that filter while recirculating the mash. Then when it'd be time to drain there's a much greater chance of getting the drain stopped up because the filter is stopped up. Better do stick a filter outside the kettle that the wort would go through on the way to the fermenter. I think I read that's a benefit of a whole cone hop back. Yea, that seems right... no in pot filter, just filter/screen between boil kettle and fermenter. Am I on the right track with that?

 

[hillbillyjones]

Too complicated

 

[garrycook]

I'm putting a whirlpool and side pickup on my boil kettle right now. Two of them, separate. If you use the 'main drain' for whirlpooling, where would you draw from to feed the pump?
Also replacing my old bazooka T which sat in the middle of the boil kettle (side pickup mentioned above). This way, my immersion chiller will sit flat on the bottom. Prior to doing this, I had a whirlpool built onto the IC, using a Type F camlock and a length of copper tubing.