Please Help On Advice On placement of Ball valve and Temp Gauge on Brew-Pot

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hi guys I scored a really high quality pot and need to take it don to have a hole (or welded but done) to fit a ball valve and temp gauge....My question is How far off the bottom of my 50 litre brew kettle should my ball valve be mounted/fitted/where hole should be made? and in most cases is temp gauge installed directly above and how much space above? Cheers,

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

excuse my typos please. meant to say Take it down, and welded bit. cheers.

[Druid]

Assuming you are using it for a boil kettle, it probably depends on whether you are wanting to whirlpool and let the trub settle in it at the end of the boil after chilling.

If you are, you'll want the ball valve to be at the right height that the volume left in the pot under the outlet is around about the amount of trub you'd normally get on your average boil.

When I did mine, I had a pretty good idea on how many litres I usually lost to trub - you can then use that and the dimensions of your pot to work backwards and determine the height for the bottom of the opening into the ball valve.

Hope that helps

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

I will only be doing a BIAB method of brewing, hope this gives some more idea of what I'll need. Also the terms 'weld-less' and the pots they sell with welded ports what the differences are?? Cheers

[Druid]

If it's BIAB, why not save yourself some money and just use an auto syphon to empty the pot and use a hand held thermometer - an installed thermometer will only end up catching the bag anyway. I reckon it's better to be able to probe around the mash anyway as it's never a uniform temp

Weldless just means you use threads, nuts and seals to seal the outlet in the pot - no welds. The main diff is price!

[Cain Harland]

Druid

You might be right about the thermometer but a bulk head and ball valve will set you back $14US so the hardware cost is comparable to and out siphon its just a question of cost/effort of putting the hole in.

Dazza

You can either try and put the valve in at the right height or put it in a little high where its easier to work on the wall of the pot and have a dip tube. With weldless you need space for a washer which pushes the hole up the wall of the pot any way. I will attach a pic of my kettle with whirlpool arm, thermometer probe and side pickup (you want to pick up from the side in your kettle to get the least trub in the fermenter). It uses an $8us 3/8inch (1/2inch would be better) center pickup tube from aliexpress I just put the compression fitting on the wrong end to change its shape. On the HTL I have the same thing installed the normal way going into the middle. Its more of a necessity in a keg due to the rounded bottom but is often done in pots too. If you are draining by gravity through a dip tube you need a bit of hose on the outside going below the bottom of the pot because without one it will stop at the level of the valve but with one the liquid in the hose will pull the liquid out of the pot to the level of the dip tube like a siphon.

As I said before don't let this stop you brewing if your otherwise ready to go. You will need some kind of thermometer but if you don't have a valve or auto siphon and have to scoop the wort from the pot to the fermenter with a steralised jug for your first few brews just do that.