Very Nice Ball Valve with built it Male NPT 1/2"

[Nebraskan]

I have a few 1/2" ball valves that have Female NPT on both ends requiring to usually buy a male thread couple to attach to a kettle or such. I found one on Amazon that was cheap as they get, and had what I was looking for. It has a Male NPT thread on the one end, and Female 1/2" NPT on the other end for anything such as a 1/2to 3/8 barb. This one is a built in end that has male NPT that I can just screw into my 10 gallon brew pot that has a welded female NPT at the bottom. This way it makes it so there is less valve sticking out and there is only 1 place on the valve-to-pot that has Teflon pipe tape, rather than 2 places. It would be GREAT to find just the Male end someplace online.

 

[Duda_Energy]

It's cheaper to make a female valve and a male nipple fitting than it is to make just a male ball valve. There is far higher demand for female valves, so most factories will make those exclusively, which drops the price.

Have you looked into 'close' nipples? Still not the perfect solution of a male valve, but they won't stick out as far.

 

[Nebraskan]

I had it (the new 1/2 Male) valve out on the table yesterday. Come to find out that even though you can unscrew the "male" end, it won't fit on any of my other 1/2" ball valves. Why? Because it is slightly larger... Other end (Female NPT) will fit in this valve but they are a little loose. Funny that this one valve has a slight difference in threads over the others. All the other valves are pretty much interchangable, but not this one.