1/4" Ball valve for Mash Tun

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

gonzoso

Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2014
Messages
8
Reaction score
2
Location
Northeast PA
So I've been extract brewing and am making the switch to all grain.

I've search the forum briefly, and read a TON of pages on the homemade Mash Tun thread.

I acquired 2 1/4" high quality stainless steel ball valves from my work from an outdated system, they were given to me not stolen.

I ordered an Igloo cooler(the one for 42$ on Amazon and was wondering if they would be acceptable to use on my mash tun. From what I've been reading it seems folks like to keep the flow rate down anyway for better efficiency, so I was wondering if these would work for me? It would save me a bunch of money but if they won't work I'll just get the 3/8" like everyone else does.

Also I considered buying a 5' length of 3/8" copper tubing and bending it into kind of a coil, then drilling a ton of little holes, deburring it, closing the end and attaching it via a high temp hose to the barb inside the mash tun effectively making a weld free copper mash filter. Does this sound viable?
 
Yes, your idea should work fine. Limiting the flow is relevant to continuous or fly sparging, in batch sparging you can drain the tun as fast as it will flow.

1/4 inch valves may drain slowly and add time to your brew session. How slow idk, but if your ok with waiting, they should be fine.

1/2" or 3/8 will flow much more wort, and just may result in you not standing idle if batch sparging, Which I prefer fwiw.

My personal opinion is brewing AG takes long enough, and I know you would like to use parts in hand, but anything that slows the process is to be avoided.

My guess would be that you will be initially satisfied with the smaller valves, but in time feel the wait is not acceptable.

Do you really want to fly sparge? If yes, you may be happy with slower runoff. Just not my thing.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Yes, your idea should work fine. Limiting the flow is relevant to continuous or fly sparging, in batch sparging you can drain the tun as fast as it will flow.

1/4 inch valves may drain slowly and add time to your brew session. How slow idk, but if your ok with waiting, they should be fine.

1/2" or 3/8 will flow much more wort, and just may result in you not standing idle if batch sparging, Which I prefer fwiw.

My personal opinion is brewing AG takes long enough, and I know you would like to use parts in hand, but anything that slows the process is to be avoided.

My guess would be that you will be initially satisfied with the smaller valves, but in time feel the wait is not acceptable.

Do you really want to fly sparge? If yes, you may be happy with slower runoff. Just not my thing.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Thanks for the advice. I went out today and purchased the fittings for and built my 10 gallon standard issue mash tun using an igloo cooler and 1/2" fittings and ball valve. I'm glad I got the 1/2", it was slow as heck to drain my leak test water, I'd hate for it to be even slower with my 1/4" ball valve. I might still use one on my HLT when that gets built because that's a much lesser volume of water and the valves were free.
 
Back
Top