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Cheesefood

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What do you guys use as your spout-to-bottom-of-keggle pipe? (what the hell do you call that thing?) SHow me pictures. I'm using a 3.5" tall by 6" long copper L and it's not 100% impressing me.
 
I belive its called a pickup tube. I used a 1/2" diameter by approx 8 to 10 inch long piece of copper tubing that I bent to arch from the coupling to the bottom of the keggle. I then soldered a male end to it that screws into the coupling. Seems to work very good and sucks up every last drop of liquid as long as the outlet of the hose is below the inlet of the pickup tube. There is a picture in my gallery.
 
Cheesefood said:
What do you guys use as your spout-to-bottom-of-keggle pipe? (what the hell do you call that thing?) SHow me pictures. I'm using a 3.5" tall by 6" long copper L and it's not 100% impressing me.

I'm assuming that you've got a hose on your spigot and the end of the hose is below the bottom of the keggle? Remember, you're essentially siphoning once you get below the level of the spigot.
 
I did the L-pickup tube, it worked like gangbusters for my H2O test, drained every last drop, but neither of the brews I have done with actual wort and hops worked. The first one, I had two dishwasher filter things (sort of chain-mail made from ss) and it clogged immediately. The second batch had a home-made hop-stopper of sorts made from grease-guards and a steamer dish, that worked until it got to the level of the L-tube then lost siphon...maybe it wasn't tight enough? Still trying to work out the bugs, I want to go with stainless scrubber pads next time...my brew buddy wants to make this thing as complicated as possible (he is probably reading this now)...
 
Are you talking about the pick-up in the kettle? I use a 1/2 inch copper pipe with a bazooka tube, works like a champ as long as i get a good siphon rolling.

Cheers


Here's my Tube for you:
 
Lil' Sparky said:
Cheese, exactly what's "not impressing you" about your pickup tube?

It fails to cuddle with me in bed at night.

What the heck do you think isn't impressing me? It didn't slurp up enough wort from my barleywine and I'm a gallon short in my carboy.
 
Mine is only a 3/8 copper pick-up. It's long enough to get to the center :). It's bent kind of S like so the DIY hopstoper can lay almost flat. dip tube opening is resting on the bottom but the opening is pointing towards the side. Wort wizard literally sucks it out so gravity is not an issue.

574-DIY-Hoppstopper3.JPG
 
Cheesefood said:
What the heck do you think isn't impressing me? It didn't slurp up enough wort from my barleywine and I'm a gallon short in my carboy.

Wort Wizard. Best $25 spend I've made in '07. Or get a pump.
 
desertBrew said:
Wort Wizard. Best $25 spend I've made in '07. Or get a pump.

I cannot believe that they will get a patent for that, laboratories have been using water flow aspirator/vacuums for like 50 years....I guess it hasn't been applied to brewing yet...
 
Cheyco Libre said:
Petshops with lots of fish stuff sell them for around $5-8, even in Canada! Places which sell waterbed supplies do as well.

Right, it's called an aspirator.
 
ColoradoXJ13 said:
I cannot believe that they will get a patent for that, laboratories have been using water flow aspirator/vacuums for like 50 years....I guess it hasn't been applied to brewing yet...

Everyone needs a marketing ploy :)

Cheesefood said:
Can't use them with a bucket though, right?

Right, and I believe it has to be glass. Otherwise it'll start compressing a Better bottle?

Cheyco Libre said:
Petshops with lots of fish stuff sell them for around $5-8, even in Canada! Places which sell waterbed supplies do as well.

Looked around forever and couldn't find one that didn't include a bunch of other fishy accessories so I decided screw it and bought it online. Under 10 minutes out of the keg to fermenter was worth it! Only problem is it starts to go too fast thru the CFC with my tap water heating up now.
 
Cheesefood said:
It fails to cuddle with me in bed at night.

What the heck do you think isn't impressing me? It didn't slurp up enough wort from my barleywine and I'm a gallon short in my carboy.

OK, you didn't say originally exactly what the problem was, just that you weren't impressed. Are you using some kind of filter or hopstopper that's getting clogged and breaking the siphon too early? What I'm really getting at is are you sure it's the pickup tube that's the problem? Will it drain the kettle empty if it's just water? If not, then the pickup tube isn't sealing right.
 
The DIY hopstopper worked wonders for the second batch in a row. My dip tube is a copper L like many others. I run it down to just about touching the bottom concave of the keggle. Because of this, I drilled about nine 1/8" holes around the circumference of the tube, right at the bottom. I leave maybe a half cup of wort behind. Of course, this is because the DIY hopstopper keeps it from clogging. Make sure your dip tube doesn't leak air where it meets the bulkhead. That'll kill a siphon quick.
 
Bobby_M said:
...Because of this, I drilled about nine 1/8" holes around the circumference of the tube, right at the bottom. I leave maybe a half cup of wort behind. Of course, this is because the DIY hopstopper keeps it from clogging. Make sure your dip tube doesn't leak air where it meets the bulkhead. That'll kill a siphon quick.

A couple of great suggestions here. Good call on the drilling. I think that might be a problem with mine, that the trub on the bottom jams up everything else.
 
Cheesefood said:
How long is your down-tube?

About an 1 1/2" after the elbow plus the "T" with the screens on it. So another inch. it is only about 1/2 inch off the bottom of the kettle.

Cheers
 
It will only siphon until the wort level hits the highest opening in the tube. If that's 1/2" off the bottom, you'll leave a bit of wort. I have no idea how much that is in volume.
 
Bobby_M said:
Mine is also 4" high but it has no affect on the siphon at all. It could be 10" high. It's all about how high the first air leak can be.

I might need to look at doing some soldering.
 
Here's my old one in my new pot. I'm going to cut down the length of copper tubing between the braid and the elbow. All of the copper parts are simply press fit together. It does a pretty good job, even with hop pellets

Boilpot1.jpg
 
Cheesefood said:
Right, but how far from the bottom of the keggle is your bulkhead? Mine's about 3-4" high.

It is right above the weld where the skirt meets the bottom of the keg.
You can see in the pic that it is almost right on top of the weld. About an 1/8th above.

I found that if you are going to solder everything inside on your pick up tube, make sure tha tit will all still line up, inside & out, when you screw it all together. I left the elbow unsoldered where it meets the longer tube so I could still rotate it and take it apart to clean it. If the joint doesn't stick together good enough, just squeeze with pliers a little bit and they should fit together snug enough to stay.
 
So what would you recommend, geniuses? Should I drill holes around the bottom, or how about cutting "teeth" into the bottom of the pickup tupe?

\/\/\/ - something like that? I have less than 1/4" of space between the bottom tube and the keggle bottom, so I think it jammed up too quickly.
 
Are you using anything as a filter or hopstopper? if so I would say just hack about anouther 1/4 inch or so off of the pick up.
 
Would 1/2" stainless tubing be to small for your dip tube?, if not let me know as current installation job is coming to an end and there are fittings and tubing leftover.
 

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