2 Piece Ball Valve? I Think Not!

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

fraser_john

Go Pies
Joined
17/1/06
Messages
2,477
Reaction score
374
Location
Victoria
I just happened to be brewing today and read with interest the 3 piece ball valve thread, so cudos to the OP.

I do not have the 3 piece jobbies, but the 2 piece.

I was also inspired to write this as some people were questioning the need to pull them apart every time, even on the kettle as boiling hot wort etc should kill everything. It does not! I had a stubborn infection that eventually traced to the ball valve on my kettle, and I use a chiller, so the wort flowing through the valve was at near boiling temps the whole time it was in contact. Further, I use steam to attempt to sanitise the ball valve whilst mashing, so the sanitation regime was pretty intense an still the little germs festered.

Anyway, the pictures below were all taken after a thorough clean of the kettle and jetting the ball valve whilst open with high pressure water. You can see in the pictures that there is a significant amount of brown fluid still left over. The wort was a stout, so it was easy to see the remaining watered down wort during clean up.

I took particular effort to get pictures of the little plastic o-ring that is used with the on/off shaft to seal, so that others can understand re-assembly.

2PieceValve_88.JPG


2PieceValve_89.JPG


2PieceValve_90.JPG


2PieceValve_91.JPG


2PieceValve_92.JPG


2PieceValve_95.JPG
 
thanks FJ for taking the time to show how wort can be easily trapped in the nooks and crannies in the valves.

cheers steve
 
Back
Top