Draining wort from kettle by gravity: best ball valve fittin

[ArnoldTheBat]

Hi,

I drain my (chilled) wort from the kettle by gravity, splashing straight into the fermenter oxygenating as it goes. Nice and simple.

Currently I used a street elbow (like: http://www.angelhomebrew.co.uk/en/taps- ... emale.html) to redirect the flow from the ball valve downwards.

This is fine, but a bit of a pain to take off the valve when I want to give it all a proper clean.

Is there a better way of doing this? Some sort of quick disconnect attachment? Hose barb and short length of hose?

How does everyone else do this?

Tom

[guypettigrew]

Mine's a Buffalo boiler. I have a length of silicone tubing from the ball valve which has a hose barb screwed into it.

The tubing gives the syphon effect needed to drain the maximum wort from the boiler. The whole thing is easy to dismantle for cleaning.

Guy

[Fil]

hi Tom if you wrap the thread used to join the elbow to the valve with a healthy wrap of ptfe tape you can both screw it in to seal and point downward with finger tightening..

a JG speedfit elbow could be used if you terminate your valve exit with some 15mm copper tube,
a 15mm compression nut, orings, and ptfe should seal a bit of copper tube to a male 1/2" bsp thread for a pressure-less seal. (substitute the usual olive for 1 or 2 silicone orings 1-2mm thick..) - the ability of speedfit joints to rotate give u an ad-hoc valentines arm too

[ArnoldTheBat]

Thanks both, sounds like whatever I do I'll have to unscrew something for a thorough clean (whether barb or elbow). Maybe I'll try the ptfe mummification trick, see if that eases things.