I came to the conclusion a month back that ball valves just suck. Unless you completely disassemble them you just don't know if they are clean, and there was at least once where mine were not. Brulosophy had an interesting post recently on them as well.
I've been looking all over for something better and aside from too-large 1.5" tri-clover ball valves, the best I've been able to find are 1/2" bronze/brass threaded butterfly valves. I haven't seen any posts on these things, so I thought I give a little mini-review
I started out with this brass Eurofly one on ebay. I then got a this bronze milwalkee bb2-100 with stainless disk on amazon to compare.
I've attached some pics of them, Milwaukee is on the right.
I got the ebay one first, acid soaked it to remove any surface lead, and used it in my brew system to throttle my mash circulation. I thought that the grooves for positioning the handle would be helpful for setting liquid speed consistency, but I ended up setting the handle halfway between two grooves to get the right speed, so they were useless. The other problem I had with this valve is the disk is just too big, limiting liquid flow and making setting liquid speed more difficult. These were'nt big issues, but I thought I might be able to find a better one.
I just got the bronze Milwaukee one with stainless disk and have done a little preliminary testing. As you can see in the picture the bore is bigger and the stainless disk is much thinner. There is much more room for liquid to flow through this valve. I was concerned at first that the handle was a little loose and might not stay in position, but testing with my 50psi faucet has proven that the handle will stay put where you set it. I haven't used it on my brew system yet, but it looks like a winner.
I'd much prefer these in Stainless, but alas they don't exist. I'll keep an eye on these valves to make sure the brass/bronze isn't corroding too fast. I think the trade off of knowing my valves are not harboring gunk is very much worth switching to bronze and the price increase. Hopefully I'm not missing some obvious reason not to use these valves, but right now I think I'm going to switch to all Milwaukee butterfly valves.
Or maybe someone knows of something even better?
I've been looking all over for something better and aside from too-large 1.5" tri-clover ball valves, the best I've been able to find are 1/2" bronze/brass threaded butterfly valves. I haven't seen any posts on these things, so I thought I give a little mini-review
I started out with this brass Eurofly one on ebay. I then got a this bronze milwalkee bb2-100 with stainless disk on amazon to compare.
I've attached some pics of them, Milwaukee is on the right.
I got the ebay one first, acid soaked it to remove any surface lead, and used it in my brew system to throttle my mash circulation. I thought that the grooves for positioning the handle would be helpful for setting liquid speed consistency, but I ended up setting the handle halfway between two grooves to get the right speed, so they were useless. The other problem I had with this valve is the disk is just too big, limiting liquid flow and making setting liquid speed more difficult. These were'nt big issues, but I thought I might be able to find a better one.
I just got the bronze Milwaukee one with stainless disk and have done a little preliminary testing. As you can see in the picture the bore is bigger and the stainless disk is much thinner. There is much more room for liquid to flow through this valve. I was concerned at first that the handle was a little loose and might not stay in position, but testing with my 50psi faucet has proven that the handle will stay put where you set it. I haven't used it on my brew system yet, but it looks like a winner.
I'd much prefer these in Stainless, but alas they don't exist. I'll keep an eye on these valves to make sure the brass/bronze isn't corroding too fast. I think the trade off of knowing my valves are not harboring gunk is very much worth switching to bronze and the price increase. Hopefully I'm not missing some obvious reason not to use these valves, but right now I think I'm going to switch to all Milwaukee butterfly valves.
Or maybe someone knows of something even better?
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