DIY/poor man's floating diptube for clear beer

[balrog]

Ok. Pretty good debugging. Time to change the lines I'd say.

 

[Bigdaddyale]

For a long time, I had a back of the tongue off flavor that I couldn't track down-turns out it was my cheap PVC tubing that I was using on the brew rig. PVC tubing is not recommended for hot water/wort transfers

 

[beervoid]

Ok. Pretty good debugging. Time to change the lines I'd say.

Yeah changed all lines and got 4 brewa ready for testing next week. I really hope this fixes the situation. It's something that slowly creeped up in my beers.
Going to take float thing out and switch to scott janish his solution of diptube filters.
Stainless for the win!

 

[balrog]

I tried the Janish-recommended SS diptube filter, but as a siphon filter during xfr and it was awful because the clogging with that "hi" flow rate. The flow rate out was faster than what could seep through. The situation would be different when used in serving, so I hope it works for you.

 

[beervoid]

I tried the Janish-recommended SS diptube filter, but as a siphon filter during xfr and it was awful because the clogging with that "hi" flow rate. The flow rate out was faster than what could seep through. The situation would be different when used in serving, so I hope it works for you.

I think a good cold crash and making sure u cut the right amount of the diptube should solve that issue. Will be testing it out soon

 

[SanPancho]

resurrecting this thread- to find out if anyone has ideas on what to use for a filter to go over the end of the cheap fermzilla-type round floating ball i originally posted here?

tried the filters for the end of your racking cane, but too big, too hard to cut and get down to size. maybe a bit of stainless steel scrubby shoved up the tube? wondering if that'd clog even worse though.....

 

[brewman !]

I'm still looking for a source of inexpensive floats for this idea.

 

[Albionwood]

resurrecting this thread- to find out if anyone has ideas on what to use for a filter to go over the end of the cheap fermzilla-type round floating ball i originally posted here?

tried the filters for the end of your racking cane, but too big, too hard to cut and get down to size. maybe a bit of stainless steel scrubby shoved up the tube? wondering if that'd clog even worse though.....

In general - the smaller the filter, the faster and worse it will clog. The tiny cross-sectional area inside the tube will clog rapidly. Also, higher pressure differentials will cause faster and tighter clogging; this is why a scrubby will work on a siphon but not so well in a keg. (And both are why a single tiny piece of hop leaf will plug a poppet!)

Filtration is always difficult and unreliable - what works great a few times will fail spectacularly just when you needed it most - so other means of separation are always preferable. Filters only really work when they aren't asked to do much.

 

[SanPancho]

the clear beer draft system offers a filter on their rig, and folks in this thread have used it successfully. hence my ask. sometimes even a 72 hour crash down to 34 doesnt get rid of everything. there's always a few floating pieces of leaf that stick around.

 

[twd000]

In general - the smaller the filter, the faster and worse it will clog. The tiny cross-sectional area inside the tube will clog rapidly. Also, higher pressure differentials will cause faster and tighter clogging; this is why a scrubby will work on a siphon but not so well in a keg. (And both are why a single tiny piece of hop leaf will plug a poppet!)

Filtration is always difficult and unreliable - what works great a few times will fail spectacularly just when you needed it most - so other means of separation are always preferable. Filters only really work when they aren't asked to do much.

true about the limitations of filtering, but it's much more preferable to have a clog at the end of your dip tube, which can be blown out with CO2, than a clog inside the poppet that requires you to depressurize the keg and expose it to oxygen in order to clear the clog.

 

[SanPancho]

one more resurrection- i use the orange carboy cap rig that i copied from @day_trippr and want to make a change. i want to go from the main /center sleeve of the orange cap to a floating dip tube from kegland/morebeer.

right now i've got a 3/8 od racking tube in there, but i want it to be the floating dip tube. the only thing i could think of is to cut the racking cane way up high close to the cap, use a 3/8 push fitting to a 1/4 barb so i can slide the tube on. but i'm thinking thats gonna need at least two fittings- push x 1/4female and then 1/4 male x 1/4 barb. anybody have a simpler solution?

im pretty sure there's no way the tube will go over the racking arm without ripping....