Ever since I started putting weldless fittings in my pots I've had problems with leaks. Not particularly bad problems, but annoying. My last setup used silicone o-rings and nuts with lock grooves cut into them. It worked pretty well and only leaked some number of drops during a 10 gallon brew session, but it would leave some sticky residue around the fitting, and it was a complicated setup with lots of teflon tape required in the right order. This new setup I've been using has never leaked a drop, requires no teflon tape and is much easier to put together.
Basically, instead of using a nut and an o-ring (which requires teflon tape for the nut at least) I'm using a custom silicon gasket between the ball valve and the pot. Most ball valves I've seen don't have enough area to hold an o-ring securely in the same position, but a flat piece of silicone works great.
I got a sheet of 1/16th inch silicon form smallparts.com. I'm sure there's other places that have it, but I have amazon prime shipping and that works at smallparts. Probably you could just get one of those silicone baking sheets and use that.
Then I just put the ball valve on the sheet and traced around it. After I cut the piece out I used a washer that has the same size hole as the ball valve to trace out the inner edge of the gasket, but you could just guess and adjust as needed till it fits.
Then you just screw everything together, without any teflon tape, with the gasket between the ball lock and the kettle.
After being frustrated by complicated weldless setups that didn't totally seal, I've been really happy with this procedure. Hope it helps someone else out
Basically, instead of using a nut and an o-ring (which requires teflon tape for the nut at least) I'm using a custom silicon gasket between the ball valve and the pot. Most ball valves I've seen don't have enough area to hold an o-ring securely in the same position, but a flat piece of silicone works great.
I got a sheet of 1/16th inch silicon form smallparts.com. I'm sure there's other places that have it, but I have amazon prime shipping and that works at smallparts. Probably you could just get one of those silicone baking sheets and use that.
Then I just put the ball valve on the sheet and traced around it. After I cut the piece out I used a washer that has the same size hole as the ball valve to trace out the inner edge of the gasket, but you could just guess and adjust as needed till it fits.
Then you just screw everything together, without any teflon tape, with the gasket between the ball lock and the kettle.
After being frustrated by complicated weldless setups that didn't totally seal, I've been really happy with this procedure. Hope it helps someone else out
