new valves
Today was a good day. Today I finally got some of the new stainless valves for the tanks down in the basement. We have been using these old clunky valves that I am so very sick of. I was even more upset to meet the original brewmaster of the brewery and find out he was sick of these clunky valves, 15 years ago!
I now have a digital camera to update this site with, so i’ll show you the new ‘bucket of valves’ in the their stainless steel glory:
The valve to the left is a “butterfly valve”, they are very nice because there is nothing hidden on them, so they are practically self cleaning. The valve on the right is a sanitary style of ball valve. We are going to use this one on bright beer tanks, since the positive closure aspect of a ball valve makes it unlikely to leak under pressure. Then we have a sanitary tee, and two types of threaded to tri-clamp adapters, and then a triclamp itself.
That box full of wrapped tri-clamp fitting is worth over a thousands dollars. We have been using old threaded and teflon taped fitting down in the basement. Removing the tape on those fittings with a wire brush has been a right of passage here at the brewery. Now with these triclamp fittings, the number of threaded connections will be at an absolute minumum. This should allow me to get more done in a day of tank cleaning, as I won’t be “scrubbing tape” all day. Though it was a nice way to sit and listen to the radio…. 
We are slowly making progress at modernizing this old brewery. When things get bad, I just have to remember what it was like when I started here. I can just think about that old cast stainless steel plate and frame filter, which leaked about a half barrel of beer for every three barrels I filtered, and I feel much better right away. (We now have a very modern D.E. filter). One step at a time!