Well.
my saga with the original design has come to an end.
I came up with some stainless lids with 3" TC ferrules welded on (Had to use two inverted due to miscommunication with the guy who cut the holes in the centers for me and made them too large). Had another friend TIG weld the ferrules together and onto some Stainless Steel "hubcaps" I purchased on eBay which fit perfectly.
After cutting the original lids and their receptacles from the plastic conicals, I fitted some o-ring seals into the remaining 3/4"-1" of the flat plastic part of the conicals. The "lids" have a small lip on the rim to retain the o-ring. Keeping them from slipping inwards was a problem so I manually cut grooves with a router bit on a spiral saw. These aren't the best but seems to function as intended. Read on...
Then I attached side bars and an overriding cross bar above the conical lids. I then drilled the cross bar and used threaded rod and nuts to apply downforce to attempt to seal the lids. However, the seals still do not seem to function at sealing the conicals. I am wondering if it is possible to fix this. I am getting tired of fiddling with these.
Also, for some odd reason, one of the ports for the dip tub has become loosened, and is damn near impossible to tighten and leaks like crazy, though I don't recall ever loosening...
Also, the dip tube and racking valve need to disassembled and sanitized between each batch. I think I've probably run about 3 batches of beer through each of the conicals, possibly less since I don't keep good records. I hadn't cleaned them out until just recently and were full of funky junk.
Also two of three sets of the galvanized steel Hydraulic fittings have rusted or the springs have failed.
I have discovered an EASY way to purge the coolant coils/circuit of glycol by the way if anyone is interested. I plan to implement this on my rig soon.
What's next? Well I think I need to remove the plastic conicals and purchase stainless conicals. I will salvage the fittings and attempt to sell what I can.
For stainless steel replacement conicals I have three options:
Stout has a nice CIP capable conical with a thermowell which will fit my cart. For cooling, I would need to use 1.5" discharge hose ($10 ea) and fashion fittings for running the coolant and for physically connecting to the conicals. These are by far the cheapest option. ($453 I believe).
SS Brewtech "Brewmaster Edition Chronical" has a coolant enabled feature that will work with some fitting adaptions for the coolant circuit. More costly and non-CIP however. CIP is very important to me.
Brewers Hardware has jacketed 15g conical. I am favoring this despite its price tag. The amount of time I have invested into this project far exceeds any monetary expenditures, partly justifying getting the rolls-royce conical.
I need to make some measurements of all three options and see which will work the best for me.
The cooling portion of the build is really a good walkthrough for a DIY glycol cooling solution and the power it has to cool your beer is impressive.
I am going to retain the system and abandon the plastic conicals in favor of a better conical that is CIP and won't leak air, beer, or coolant.
TD