Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey guys, more questions for my curiosities...

Has anyone done a drain pipe/valve on their gas run boilers? I really want to do a drain on my keg for ease of back set and cleaning. My concerns are fittings expanding/contracting causing leaks, hot spots or uneven heating to the base of the boiler.

I'd want to mount it from the Centre point underneath the keg, because it has that slight curvature to that point, making it the lowest section. But if it creates an unsafe boiler, then I definitely don't want to go down that path.

CRB

People have (I haven't), but you'd have to avoid joins with seals in the flame. It's have to be a welded piece where your seal is only at the valve outside of the burner flame :think:

Brendan wrote:People have (I haven't), but you'd have to avoid joins with seals in the flame. It's have to be a welded piece where your seal is only at the valve outside of the burner flame :think:

That's along the lines of what I wanted to do, have an elbow and straight piece welded, and no valve or anything with a gasket or seal until the outer perimeter of the keg. Hopefully it will work...hopefully. I also have to take into consideration my keg stand, don't want it to get in the way when I mount the boiler into it.

If you install a tri clamp fitting to the side of the keg, either by welding/soldering or installing a socket and using a screw in tri clamp flange
You can then either buy or create something like this https://www.brewershardware.com/1-Tri-C ... -Tube.html
You could make one by soldering some copper tube (pre bent) protruding from the face side of a triclamp flange, then soldering another flange to the back end of the original flange, then your tri clamp ball valve installs to this

OR

The much simpler version is installing a 4" fill port on the top of your boiler and accessing the inside of the keg to install one of these http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.ph ... uct_id=157
washers, silicone gaskets and a ball valve and you've got a weldless drain
Just need a length of silicone tubing to complete the siphon to get that last bit out of the bottom

@spork

The welding part isn't a problem. A friend of my runs a large, commercial plumbing company, so I should be right getting any size/angle/length of ss, I'm more worried about the possibility of any issues that may arise from gas cooking on the drain.

IF you weld a section of pipe so that the first connection is outside the area the flame would be.... should work.

IE no seals to cause issue, just stainless until it gets to the valve.

It starts to make the whole thing taller though.
So you may need to check that you have enough distance from the ceiling to fit it in your shed/workshop etc.
Once the column is fitted that is. :D
Just a thought

DBV

dogbreath vodka wrote:IF you weld a section of pipe so that the first connection is outside the area the flame would be.... should work.

IE no seals to cause issue, just stainless until it gets to the valve.

It starts to make the whole thing taller though.
So you may need to check that you have enough distance from the ceiling to fit it in your shed/workshop etc.
Once the column is fitted that is. :D
Just a thought

DBV

Thanks for the tip DBV, the keg stand I've currently got sits it all at a good height to the ceiling, and I've got enough room underneath to hopefully fit a 1" pipe fairly clear of any obstructions. Good to hear that the gas shouldn't cause too much of an issue though.

There is a pic of a boiler on here somewhere that has a short pipe welded to keg bottom.It goes right through thr middle ofthe burner and the bend is fitted under the burner.It gets theflame right up where you want it.

Yummyrum wrote:There is a pic of a boiler on here somewhere that has a short pipe welded to keg bottom.It goes right through thr middle ofthe burner and the bend is fitted under the burner.It gets theflame right up where you want it.

That's an interesting idea, I'll have to look at the specs of my burner, I don't think I have a hole in the Centre though, I think it's a solid piece. That could be a way to resolve my concerns though