Ball valves

What is your routine for disassemble and clean/sanitize brewery ball valves? between each brew? other schedule(s)?

Probable twice a year for me, as they’re stuck a pain to work on. I just make sure the boil kettle valve gets good and hot and pray that’s enough to sanitize it.

I intend to upgrade to the Blichman linear flow valve everywhere, it disassembles easily.

I blast hot water through them immediately after every batch, and try and soak them in PBW/star san every few. I’d like to switch to a valve I could disassemble, but that seems like a lower priority right now.

I flush my mash tun valve.

I recirculate hot oxyclean through my pump and boil kettle valves, then rinse, then starsan.

Normally disassemble and clean ever 4-6 brews. But I’m replacing my ball valves with 3 peice ball valves, which will be cleaned every brew day. The gunk I find when I take apart the old ones grosses me out. Never had a problem, and the beers made right after thorough cleaning are no different, but… freaks me out and probably a matter of time.

I finally ended up with a three-piece ball valve, and I hate the thing. The bolts are so close to the main body of the valve that you have to use an open-end wrenches to get them apart. Takes forever. The two piece ones are simpler, but I’ve encountered ones that weren’t possibly to loosen without wrecking them.

Ones I got don’t look too bad. Hold with open end, zip off with nut driver

The 3-piece I have on my MLT is the motivation behind the question. I prefer the 2-piece on my BK for ease of disassembly/assembly.

Mine cam on an SS Brewtech Kettle. There is only enough space for the head of the bolt to rotate, can’t get a socket on it. Glad not all of them are that way.

I typically clean the 3-piece valves on my fermenter after about 3 uses. The 2-piece valves on my pump are never cleaned since they only deal with hot-side.

Don’t clean valves at all!  Don’t use ball valves!

I’ve been using these as valves on the outlet from my kettle and the two outlets from my pump for two years.  Works great on silicone hose and nothing to clean.  $1.99

https://www.homebrewing.org/Large-Siphon-Hose-Shut-off-Clamp_p_4872.html

I cleaned mine the other day and they were clean as a whistle. It’s been several brews so the motivation behind the question was to try to gauge how often others open them up. The clamp idea is a good one.

I clean them maybe once a year.  There’s never much gunk in them when I open them up.  If there was, I’d do it more often.

same here;  once I started slowly opening and closing the valves (to get behind the ball assembly) during cleaning of the vessel they are attached to, I noticed they stay pretty clean.

I have two mash tuns, one with a valve and one where I use a hose and a clamp.  The hose and clamp works far better than the valve and was so much easier to assemble it made me angry that I wasted time putting a ball valve on the other.

However, for my kettle, I don’t see any other option than a ball valve.  I’d be afraid the hose and clamp would melt clean off while I’m boiling.

How about a longer nipple, Joe? Get your tubing away from the flame

Like a bulkhead and nipple with no valve?  Never considered that.  I’m ok with the ball valve, though.

Right. Not sure how your kettle is configured, but most have female fitting welded in, then short nipple, then valve, then barbed or quick disconnect. So… eliminate valve and use a longer nipple to a collar to the barbed? But ya, valve works too

I drilled the kettles myself and put on a weld less ball valve and bulkhead. I suppose the bulkhead is independent of the valve but I don’t recall