If you have ever wanted to put together your own weldless valve set-up into a cooler, pot or keg I’ve got a list of parts you need.  Rather than buy a weldless valve set up from a supplier you can get the parts yourself and maybe save a couple bucks.  Or if you are just a total DIY type of brewer this list should help you out.

You can get these from McMaster-Carr at http://www.mcmaster.com/ . 

Part#
4464K214 Stainless Steel Full Coupling 1/2″
4830K171 Stainless Steel Close Nipple, Full Thread 1/2″
98126A797 Stainless Steel Washers 1/2″ (pk of 10)
9396K32 Silicone O-Rings (pack of 50)
4429K124 Locknut, Brass 1/2″
4190K22 Brass Ball Valve 1/2″ Full Port

This set up will give you what you need to put a valve on a cooler, keg or pot.
The only unfortunate part of ordering some of this from McMasterCarr is that you have to get a 50 pack of washers.
But maybe you can trade with some friends, or you’ll have a life time supply if you need to replace one later.

Not to long ago I went to the garage to fire up the kettles.  I screwed in my propane burner to the tank and heard a mild hissing sound, but didn’t think much of it at first because I was moving fast to get started.  I lit the burner but it wasn’t burning as strongly as normal.  Sometimes, I need to reseat the connection at the propane tank.  I shut it all down, unscrewed and rescrewed in the burner hose to the propane tank and opened the regulator to refire the burner.  But this time I again heard hissing and I could feel gas escaping from the regulator control valve itself.  I clearly had a leak in the regulator.

Now maybe I am crazy, or maybe I am just plain stupid.  Regardless, but I sparked my lighter at the valve to see if there was really that much gas leaking.  Sure enough I now had about an 8 inch flame shooting out of the regulator.  I couldn’t turn off the regulator because it was engulfed in flames, and I couldn’t shut it off at the tank, because it was also engulfed in flames.  (OK, so maybe I am stupid.)  But it didn’t rattle me, I just thought well I need to either let the tank burn out so I should get some marshmallows or I need to put the flames out.

Luckily, a couple good swipes with my heavy leather work gloves and the flames went out.  Anyway, my brew day usually goes pretty smoothly using two burner set ups.  I finished the brew session on one burner.  Being down to one burner though in the cold winter months has slowed the brewing process down for now.  However, it has made me invest in some parts to build a brew stand.  That progress is where much of my brewing time is now spent.  Hopefully, I’ll complete it over the christmas break I have from work, and I can fire up a new system on new years.

One thing I have learned from this is I need to add one of the following to my christmas wish list:
1.  New leather gloves  or 2. A Fire Extinguisher.

BREW ON!

Or…Here’s my Christmas Wish List:

1.  6.5 gallon glass carboy – either that or a Better Bottle carboy.  I think I would like to end my primary fermentation in a bucket days.

2. Grain mill - I have been putting this one off because of the cost, but I would rather mill my grains at home than have someone else do it.

3. Aeration stone set-up – This piece will complete my quest in getting better at fermentation.  Now that I feel like I have starters and temperature handled, I should be aerating my wort during every session.

These are the next three immediate upgrades.  After these three, my sights will be set on a keg system.

I have written about water filters for homebrewing before and I have thought about building one.  One reader left a comment on a previous post about getting a water filter that is made for recreational vehicles or RVs. 

The best part about this kind of water filter is that it has garden hose sized hookups, which is the size I have on my utility sink.

I found a good one on the Ace Hardware website, but instead of ordering it online and paying for shipping and hoping that it made it to my house in time for the brew session on Sunday, I called the store near my house to see if they had it in stock.

They didn’t…but the guy on the other end of the phone said he could order for me and have it shipped to the store by Thursday. 

I said, “Awesome.”

We’ll see how much of a difference it makes.

I bought a ten gallon cooler for a mash tun.  I decided that the 5 gallon cooler just wasn’t cutting it with the bazooka screen.

The next step is to buy a false bottom with some tubing and a 3/8 to 1/2 fitting to connect to my ball valve spigot.

Then, I should be on my way to brewing that Saison I have been writing about for weeks.

With a beer fridge, I needed to buy another piece of equipment to really take advantage of its climate controlling abilities.

That piece of equipment is a thermostat that you can override your fridge’s internal temperature gauge.

This device will enable me to keep specific temperatures for fermentation. Instead of having to depend on cold winter basement temps and ice, I can ferment a lager any time of year. Plus, it should help me with ale fermentations in the summertime too.

I am pretty excited to give this thing a go. The next lager I am brewing will be a rauchbier and the fermentation will be happening on an “away game”. I think we will be brewing at my friend Brian’s house and fermenting there too.

I bought this one at Northern Brewer.  Let me know if you have had experience with it. 

What is whirlpooling?

You may hear the term whirlpool in discussion by professional brewers and some homebrewers alike.

Whirlpooling is the process of getting the wort in the kettle spinning to generate centrifugal force.  Just like being a kid in a pool, once you get the wort spinning enough there is a density gradient created that forces any solids (hops and break material) towards the center of the kettle.

After the whirlpool slows down considerably, the wort can be slowly drawn out of the kettle from the edge where there is the least amount of kettle debris.  In some kettles, there may even be a diverter plate installed on the inner-most side of the valve opening to hold back kettle material as the flow of fluid tries to draw it into the draining valve.

What’s the benefit?  Clearer wort into the fermentor means less loss to cold-break material and yeast debris in the fermentor.  It can also be speculated that clearer wort at this stage improves the chances of clearer beer in the final package.

How do you do it at home?  When I finish my boil, I leave my stainless steel spoon in the kettle to keep it sanitary from the heat.  Then I start my chill with an immersion chiller that entered the wort 15 minutes before the boil ended.  As the wort chills, I can stir occasionally with the spoon.  This leads to more efficient contact of hot wort with the cold coils of the chiller, reducing chilling time.  After the wort reaches my chilled temp, I pull out the chiller.  Then with the still sanitary spoon in the fermentor, I start to stir in big circles.  This creates a very nice whirlpool.   I pull the spoon out and put a lid on the kettle to let it spin and slowly stop.  Generally, I let it rest for 20 minutes or so while I clean up and prep a fermentor and airlock.  When I am ready, draw the clear wort out of the kettle.

Another way that’s slightly more fancier is to use a brewing pump to create the whirlpool.  Pulling wort out of a valve at the base of the kettle, then reintroducing a 6-8 inches below the surface and parallel to the surface.  This creates a whirlpool using flow rate.  If you have the equipment and do this while using an immersion chiller, you get superior chiller-wort contact. (As reported by Jamil Zainasheff).

I hope that helps describe whirlpooling and its applications in clearing wort and chilling wort.

BREW ON!