Speidel fermentors - now with stainless rotating racking arm!

[BSD_Glass]

I got sick of the valves on the racking port of my spiedel fermentors (lack of barb, small clamping area, weird hose sizes accepted) so I started looking into putting weldless bulkheads through the cap that ships with the units. In my investigations, I was hitting around $30 per fermentor to put together a hose barb, ball valve and bulkhead assembly. In looking further, I wandered to the ssbrewing website (home of the chronical and brew bucket stainles fermenters that are new to the market) and saw that they sell the rotating racking arm for around that same $30. Good deal, thought I and I put myself on the email list for some when they came in.

The next day I got an email they were in. Two days later I was drilling out my cap to accept one. After assembling for leak checking, I noticed a small leak, which would not do for a fermentor at all! I disassembled and noticed the orings looked a little small to give a good seal in this application. Off to an orings website and I picked up 3/32" thick food safe silicone orings (I also got the 1/8" thick but they were too thick doubled up in this application). Reassembled,rotating and leak free!

With the rotating racking valve/arm in place, my 60 litre Speidel drains to less than a gallon of dead space in a water test which sounds like a lot but is kind of perfect as I scale my brews for 11 gallons into the fermentor so I can get 2 clean cornies per batch. After yeast and trub, I should have less than a half gallon of wasted beer this way. Win for me! I find it too much trouble to worry about getting that last bit of beer in bottles after kegging 2 full kegs.

After the kids go back to school, I'll get a batch fermenting and report back.

Hope this helps someone.

Merry Christmas!

BSD

 

[HDIr0n]

Can you take a pic of the back of the cap?

 

[BSD_Glass]

It's just a simple weldless install. Orings sandwich the cap with the valve face on the outside and a nut on the inside.

Merry Christmas

 

[ram5ey]

What size hole did you drill?

 

[BSD_Glass]

I used a step bit and went until the valve fit. It is a LITTLE looser than I would prefer but works fine. Both fermenters I have modified this way are in use so I can't measure. With calipers or a drill guide, you could easily size the hole you need to fit the valve's threaded section through.

Cheers.

BSD

 

[sumbrewindude]

Nicely done. Solves one of my few gripes with the Spiedel - now I may need to chase one of these down!

 

[ram5ey]

I've done 4 batches since doing this mod and it is perfect. No complaints whatsoever.

 

[BSD_Glass]

Nice!

BSD

 

[turkeyjerky214]

Dumb question, are you able to rotate the racking arm once it's installed? I'm assuming the answer is yes, but I thought I'd check before moving forward with this.

 

[ram5ey]

Yep

 

[turkeyjerky214]

Awesome. Between this and adding a gas-inlet to the lid, I'm think I'm gonna love my Speidel even more.

 

[Carlscan26]

Awesome. Between this and adding a gas-inlet to the lid, I'm think I'm gonna love my Speidel even more.

Turkeyjerkey - what's the gas inlet for? Pressurized transfers? Will these things hold pressure? Assuming it's only a couple of lbs?

 

[Carlscan26]

To the OP - great mod! I've been waiting on their new chrome spigots from MoreBeer but even those don't have a racking arm.

I usually play with the height of the opening by very carefully loosening the valve cap and then rotating it but I always feel like I'm playing with fire when I do that risking a leak. Yours is a much more elegant solution!

 

[BSD_Glass]

Thanks, man. I see that I've had these in service for 1 day shy of a year now and have had ZERO issues with leaks or anything going wrong.

Totally happy I went this way.

Cheers.

BSD

p.s. they will take around 3 psi no problem for pressure transfers. They'll take more pressure but the lid bulges up pretty big and that is a little scary for me.

 

[Carlscan26]

I gravity drain today into the dip tube connection - occasionally a chunk of yeast clogs the ball lock fitting and then it's a pain to clear it - I usually just pinch of the tube, pull the disconnect off, quickly sanitize the tube and drop it into the keg. A small amount of pressure would be enough to clear that.

Do you have any pics of how you did the pressure connection?

Thanks!
Carlscan

 

[Weezy]

Tilting the jug doesn't work?

 

[ram5ey]

I find that trub line is almost always just below the inlet anyways so the racking arm doesn't do much for me, but I had a terrible problem with the plastic valves that came with the fermenter leaking. This has totally solved that issue so thanks again!

 

[BSD_Glass]

I gravity drain today into the dip tube connection - occasionally a chunk of yeast clogs the ball lock fitting and then it's a pain to clear it - I usually just pinch of the tube, pull the disconnect off, quickly sanitize the tube and drop it into the keg. A small amount of pressure would be enough to clear that.

Do you have any pics of how you did the pressure connection?

Thanks!
Carlscan

I use the old plastic spigot on the top and just pop a short piece of 3/8" silicon tubing onto it. The pvc tubing I have set up on the pressure pushing end of my regulator simply pressure fits into the silicon. Easy peasy.


BSD

 

[Carlscan26]

Yeah that is simple and nice reuse of the plastic Spigot.

 

[hafmpty]

SSBrewTech has newer racking arms that dip further down into the their Brew Buckets to leave less beer behind. Here's a picture:

Do you foresee any issues with a longer racking arm in the 60L Speidel? Do you think it bump into the sides or the bottom?

 

[ram5ey]

I don't think so. Looks fine.

 

[hafmpty]

Just a quick follow-up. I did this same project. The only difference is that I used the newer, deeper diptube version of the ball valve from SsBrewTech. It works flawlessly. The diptube actually reaches pretty much all the way to the bottom of the Speidel so you can get pretty much every drop of wort out that you want. My plan is to watch the wort level go down as I rack and then slowly rotate the racking arm down as it gets closer to the bottom.

If you ferment with the Speidel propped up a bit away from the spigot, you could prop it up the opposite direction during racking and you'd get every bit of wort you could want. Awesome idea. Thanks again for doing the up-front work.

 

[jkovac]

I did this to my 120l Spiedel spigot after reading this thread. What a great tip. Thank you!

 

[DarkStormBrewing]

Great Thread! Thanks for the pics and updates!

 

[eulipion2]

I'm considering a Speidel tank, and this mod as well. Is the cap that you drilled this Replacement Locking Cap from MoreBeer?

 

[BSD_Glass]

Yup. The fermenter will come with one too.

BSD

I'm considering a Speidel tank, and this mod as well. Is the cap that you drilled this Replacement Locking Cap from MoreBeer?

 

[eulipion2]

Awesome. Thanks!

 

[DarkStormBrewing]

does the ball valve that you are using disassemble...fully? similar to a regular 2 piece ball valve? it looks like there is a spot for a wrench on the barb, but i wanted to make sure i can get down to the insides before pulling the trigger, had problems before getting my 2 piece valves 100% clean with out breaking them down

also, i purchased the Chrome Spigot and its pretty lame, the base piece is threaded 1/2 but not NPT, no taper on it but 1/2 NPT nipple fit fine(no leak test done yet)...tossing the valve, not easy to keep a hose on it even with clamp, and cant get down to the insides, tried numerous ways...at least i have a nice 1/2 threaded port plastic base...

 

[ram5ey]

Yeah it can be taken apart for thorough cleaning. Check out post #813 on this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/brew-bucket-ss-brewing-technologies-446675/index21.html#post6296681

 

[ram5ey]

You could also just take off the blue plastic knob and boil the valve for extra peace of mind.

 

[sasky7777]

Are these the orings that were used? http://www.oringsandmore.com/silicone-o-rings-size-113-price-for-50-pcs/

 

[BSD_Glass]

Are these the orings that were used? http://www.oringsandmore.com/silicone-o-rings-size-113-price-for-50-pcs/

Looks to be true. I measured mine and came up with those dimensions.

Cheers.

BSD

 

[hafmpty]

Are these the orings that were used? http://www.oringsandmore.com/silicone-o-rings-size-113-price-for-50-pcs/

These are the ones I bought (same as original posting) and they work great. Shipping is only $2.50 and the O-rings are only $4.00.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160961452384?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

[eulipion2]

So I have my first brew with this mod in the fermentor and have some concerns/observations:

1) The plastic on the cap flexes a little too much for comfort when I try to turn the valve on/off;

2) The stock o-rings sealed perfectly without a leak - is there any advantage to moving to the recommended rings?

3) How safe would it be to use this in a "swamp cooler" situation? All of my previous fermentors have been solid carboys without spigots or any other additional ports. Just a little worried about the valve sitting in funky water for 2-3 weeks then having my beautiful beer run through it, even with proper sanitation, and assuming no leaks.

4) Did one brew with stock spigot that had a small leak, but the leaking beer dried and sealed the leak. Not impressed with stock, overall I'm happy I upgraded the spigot.

Thanks!

 

[ram5ey]

So I have my first brew with this mod in the fermentor and have some concerns/observations:

1) The plastic on the cap flexes a little too much for comfort when I try to turn the valve on/off;

2) The stock o-rings sealed perfectly without a leak - is there any advantage to moving to the recommended rings?

3) How safe would it be to use this in a "swamp cooler" situation? All of my previous fermentors have been solid carboys without spigots or any other additional ports. Just a little worried about the valve sitting in funky water for 2-3 weeks then having my beautiful beer run through it, even with proper sanitation, and assuming no leaks.

4) Did one brew with stock spigot that had a small leak, but the leaking beer dried and sealed the leak. Not impressed with stock, overall I'm happy I upgraded the spigot.

Thanks!

1-yeah, I never had that much of an issue with that as I kind of held the whole valve as I turned the knob.

2-maybe, maybe not. But this might give you a little extra wiggle room in regard to #1

3-I wouldn't do that personally, but that's just me.

4-I had several leaking issues with multiple stock spigots, never with this solution.

Hope that helps!

 

[eulipion2]

Thanks, ram5ey!

 

[sasky7777]

Got my modification done. On some I put the valve-new oring-cap-new oring-stock oring-nut and others just the new oring. With the extra one in, there weren't a lot of threads left, but neither worked better than the other in my leak tests. Two small issues. First, the orings on the racking arm squish up and don't seem to be entering the valve body properly. Second on some of the valves if I am looking at the fermenter from the front and I want the valve handle on top I have to have the racking arm on the left and then rotate it right to get it upwards. If I have the raking arm on the right and rotate it left I sometimes get leaks. Any thoughts from others using this modification?

 

[ram5ey]

Yeah in my experience you want to always rotate clockwise. I also tried not to over tighten as that could also create a leak. The orientation of the valve doesn't really hurt its effectiveness.

 

[eulipion2]

Quick question: what size o-rings go on the arm itself (the smaller ones)? I figure they're going to need replaced from time to time, but I can't find any info on them.

 

[DemonsRun]

I also did this mod to my Speidel a while ago works great, but I also added the SSbrewtech Thermowell and digital thermometer.