Manifold

[Goat]

I made this up to go in my new 37L Coleman Cooler on the weekend. Its made from braided stainless wire tubing and is covered in holes varying from 1 to 1.5 mm Its about 35mm diameter tube.

Its hose clamp city at the moment, but a can't think of a more elegant solution which will allow me to pull it apart for cleaning. I'm not sure if the clamps are stainless - does it matter if they are standard mild steel ?

I've connected it with a copper tee, some clear tubing (to accommodate the angle to the outlet) and a brass threaded tube through the Cooler tap hole. I read following making this that brass is not the best, so I am getting some Stainless to replace it....

My question to those with more experience than me is: will this work? Any comments would be warmly welcomed.....

 

[Doc]

Goat,

That looks the business.
Seen quite a few pictures of people using similar setups on HBD and they have reported success.

Should work a treat.

Beers,
Doc

 

[GMK]

Goat,

That should work well - but change the brass tube for SS and buy a SS ball valve for the front tap...

 

[Batz]

Have seen some of that at a local Hyd. shop and wondered about using it , looks really neat.
As GMK said , spent the extra few bucks and go stainless
I'll be interested in how it performs

 

[Goat]

Thanks for the comments guys....

Can someone please clear this Brass/Stainless thing for me.... I've read also that the former should be avoided because of Lead. As far as I know however, Brass is composed of Copper and Zinc - no Lead. So where is the problem with brass? most, if not all houses in the country have brass fittings everywhere !

... and I'm stuffed if I can find any threaded 1/2 inch stainless tube after ringin every place I can think of

 

[wedge]

brass is not that bad. Palmer makes a almost tongue in cheek comment about washnig the brass before you use it in his book. I use brass.

http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixB.html


S/S is often harder to find and more expensive, dont get fooled into buying chrome plated brass, (i almost did)

 

[Jovial_Monk]

i have a copper manifold, brass nipple and iron washers in my mashtun

the iron washers look a bit black. . .

in my converted beer keg kettle I have a brass nipple and a copper pickup tube on the inside, brass fittings look a bit black. . .


OK anytime you have two dissimilar metals joined together and moisture is present you will find some electro-chemical interactions happening. I doubt they are very important, but you may think otherwise


Brass fittings have very small balls of lead in them to make machining the stuff easier. I don't give a stuff, doubt there is enough lead dissolved to make a diff




if you are worried about any of this, ****, better go search the hbd digest (hbd.org and search on brass and lead and stuff)


drunk Jovial Monk

 

[Goat]

Thanks chaps - it sounds like I'm getting a bit anal....

I re-read the Palmer paragraph and it looks like I may have the wrong end of the stick anyway he was referring to brass alloys "Some brewers use brass fittings in conjunction with their wort chillers or other brewing equipment and are concerned about the lead that is present in brass alloys."

I;m not too worried about electrolysis - though I did put a section of tube between the stainless braid and the copper tee - but that was more for aesthetics

Wow - www.hbd.org !! Thanks JM - there is a serious amount of information in that sucker (shame its so ugly)

 

[big d]

gday goat
guess the jurys out on brass etc but hey if its all thats available give it ago and let your taste buds decide.
personally all my stuff is s/s as i have access to this stuff besides shiny s/s looks a treat.
only thing that isnt s/s is the wort cooler which is copper although i couldve made one out of s/s but copper conducts heat better.

cheers
big d