Who has the best racking gear? Prices?

[pdilley]

Hey guys.

I'm in need of some decent racking gear. Locally there is a lot of plastic sold and we know what happens when that hits heat.

I have the folks flying down here from the ol' USA so I'd like to get them to bring down some quality racking gear.

Who has the best selection and best prices of gear for Mail Order in the States?

I have about 16 of the 1 Gallon glass fermenters. (Growlers)
I need a racking cane (stainless the best?) for these smaller fermenters. I'd like to find the one with the two holes in the bung with one hole a blow tube you can attach one of those disc filters to so I can do super quick and easy siphon starts.


Next up I have a 6 1/2 Gallon glass fermenter (Demijohn shape).
I also have two 9 Gallon glass fermenters (Demijohn shape).
I need a racking cane (stainless the best?) for these larger fermenters. Same as above I'd also like to find those caps you can put the racking cane through one hole and the other hole for putting in a filter so you can blow air in and do an easy start siphon.


I don't have any of the above at my local brew stores as I've said, its all plastic junk and very high local prices for plastic.

I want to get some quality gear to last a lifetime.

Any shops out there with good shipping deals? I need to ship it to Los Angeles so the folks can bring it over on a flight down in 2 months.


EDIT: Might need one for racking hot beer wort as well. Probably worth getting one dedicated in case hop resins don't clean off well I won't skunk up wines and meads by using a wort racking cane.

EDIT: What bottom tip technologies are out there? Anything that lets you dunk it down into the lees/trub and siphon only above the yeast layer?

I'm so out of touch with the racking gear due to plastic junk locally.

Pete

 

[lowlife]

I have only used plastic and I have only ever seen anyone else use plastic. (autosiphon).

 

[Brewers Hardware]

I haven't put them on my site yet, but I've been making custom length stainless steel racking canes that are polished and deburred (the SS racking cane I bought years ago still had the writing on it and was left with burrs from cutting.) They range in price from $12 to $25 depending the length you need. A 25" cane is $18.

The only photo I have right now is the one included in my stainless steel fermenter kit.

Derrin

 

[pdilley]

Our plastic is just polyethylene tubes. "Soft as" straight off the shelf and as soon as it hits hot wort it bends a deforms. No auto siphons here though and although I did look at them initially Id worry about getting any replacement parts, especially that since USPO has dropped iternational ground shipping (boat) that it will cost anywhere upwards of $50-60 airmail to ship it over here!

I like the idea of deburred if the quality of the build of store ss gear has not improved. I do like the idea of getting other bits and putting it on the same shipment to LA as I now want to get a pound of sparkaloid, sake rice spores, and other impossible to find items down here. I'll get out the tape measure and get a battery for the cheezy plastic digital calipers and get some OD and height measurements the have to use google to convert metric and see what I will need in inches and fractions

Cheers,
P

 

[chucke]

have to use google to convert metric and see what I will need in inches and fractions

25.4 is the magic number- mm to inches.

To get a broader idea of whats available on the shelf here, you can peruse some of our bigger homebrew suppliers.
MoreBeer
Northern Brewer
Midwest Homebrewing Supplies

good luck.

 

[mmb]

I use auto siphon and have both the smaller 1G model and the standard model. Best solution I've found for moving wine and beer thus far.

 

[pdilley]

I look at the auto siphon and apart from the "I broke my ... posts" I wonder if it will last me a long enough time.

Stock standard siphons are no issue. I santise them and rinse them with hot tap water and in the process its already fully primed with water and ready to go for hot wort siphoning. Cane in the stockpot, host in a bucket or left over juice bottle and in 3 seconds the water is clear and the wort is flowing. One second to switch hose into a transfer container (I use no chill cubes). Done.

The meads and wines or beer rackings to secondaries would be the next item to look at. Already fermented means nothing is going to live in there that will kill me. I've never had an issue with the water primed siphon start except if I lose a siphon then starting it again is fill up with water. Not a big deal. But again its easier in my mind to have a two hole carboy cap. Cane in one hole, blow into the other. 3 seconds siphon is restarted.

I've looked at all three of:MoreBeer
Morebeer
Northern Brewer
Midwest Homebrewing Supplies

Morebeer seems out of stock on most items and does not have a large selection in gear.
I'll probably go with one or both of the last two. Thanks for the links.

I've seen some of the prices of refractometers, same models from the same factory I get through a Hong Kong reseller for about $17 USD I've seen for $70 and $90. Ouch shop smart!

Cheers,
P

 

[Revvy]

We don't tend to rack out stuff until AFTER it has cooled to below the temp that can damage the plastic. We chill our wort, with a chiller or an ice bath then transfer it to out fermenters. So plastic works fine. I don't quite get what you are trying to rack, and why temp is an issue for you and not the rest of us.

But if you are racking something too hot for your racking gear, then more than likely it is also to hot for wherever you are moving it to, unless you are fermenting in a stainless steel corney or conical..If you are going to a plastic bucket or better bottle, check the pics of the melted better bottles on here. If you are racking to a glass vessel, look up thermal shock and glass carboys....not good either way.

It seems to me either you are over thinking/complicating something extremely simple or you are trying to re-invent the wheel.

Either way plastic racking gear whether it is an autosiphon ( which are only broken if you are not careful putting on or taking off the hose and and be solved by heating the end of the hose in hot water to soften it before attaching or putting a small slit in the end or getting a larger hose and using a clamp) or a plastic cane and hse setup (people have the same issue with breaking at the bend,) really does work for a vast majority of brewers in normal brewing circumstances.

If you are conscious of what you are doing the autosiphon will last years.

It's your choice to overpay for a metal racking cane ...but I would rather buy a couple autosiphons (kepping one as a spare if they were hard to come buy if I wasn't careful) and use them carefully for the same price then have to mess with manually starting a siphon on a racking cane, metal or otherwise. Like I said there is really no reason to be racking liquid hot enough to damage the plastic.

 

[bendavanza]

Autosiphon plastic gets brittle from being heated. Rather than looking for a racking cane for hot liquids, I would install a ball valve and dip tube on the boil kettle and use some hi temp thick wall silicone tubing for hot transfer to the no chill containers. Use an Autosiphon (buy a couple) for normal temp transfers from fermenter to fermenter etc. Take care (like revvy's points) with the AS and it will last for years. Being clear it's easy to see if they are clean or not. The outer tube also acts as a wine thief.