Hey guys. Long time lurker, first time poster

[cochise]

Hi guys, I'm from Sydney and have been brewing for 7 years and have finally moved to all grain. I put down my first batch last Sunday and everything went swimmingly apart from the ball valve fitting on my keep cold cooler ( 36l) mash tun. The problem i had was when I bought a weldless kit and tried to install it to the cooler that the threaded nipple (1.5") wasn't long enough to attach the ball valve and close it off properly.To improvise i added another nipple and coupler so i had enough space to put on the ball valve without obstructing it. Everything was fine when i did a cold test, but when i went to mash i had a very small leak every time i slightly touched the ball valve.

Just wondering if anyone can tell me what sized nipple i need to fit through this type of cooler?

Cheers

 

[schoey]

Hi Cochise,

is this the cooler you're talking about?


If so, I got a 2.5" threaded pipe from Craftbrewer. The ball valve is just far enough out from the wall to close properly and that's with just a few mm of the pipe poking through the inside of the mash tun as I'm using a BIAB bag inside as the filter, so need to attach any fittings.

 

[cochise]

Hi schoey,

Yeah that is the exact same cooler i have but i have a false bottom attached with a male 3/8" barb fitted to a coupler. Will I be still fine with a 2.5" or should i try and find a 3".

Cheers

 

[schoey]

If you can find a 3" threaded pipe (or larger) I'd go for that, you might just be able to get away with 2.5, although it will be tight getting enough pipe on the inside to screw the coupler on to. For reference, I've got about 5mm pipe visible on the inside and I could probably get an extra 10mm before I wouldn't be able to close the ball valve.

 

[cochise]

Cool, thanks heaps. Just found a 75mm nipple that beerbelly sells with their bulkhead kit. Hopefully they will just sell me the threaded nipple.