If I ever get the time to make nine gallons of beer in my twelve-gallon feed bucket, I will need a large OD hole for the blow-off tube. I found the hosebarb at my local Big R and was surprised to see that the backnuts for our one-inch transfer valves are a perfect fit. Feast thine eyes…
The backnut…
I gotta make these images smaller. Eating-up too much bandwidth…
3/4" ID silicone tubing is hard to find, lest you order it on-line. I found a place that sells 3.28 feet of it for something like twelve bucks. A better idea may be to make provision for using smaller tubing. With that in mind, I cobbled-up the above: One-inch hole in the lid of the fermenter and then various plumbing devices to get to a half-inch hose barb. Finding half-inch ID silicone tubing at your LHBS shouldn’t be too hard.
The black gasket is a Hillman fender washer of 1" ID and 2.5-some" OD. Fits nice and snug over transfer valves. I kinda remember they’re about two bucks at Big R. I don’t use them for holding-back the wort; I fear they might be a little too hard to get a good seal. For transfer valve gaskets I use 6" x 6" x 1/8" white silicone sheet cut into 2" x 2" squares. I then punch a 1" hole in the center of the cut sheet with a 1" arch punch by General, p/n 1271M. Cuts a gorgeous, perfectly round hole with no ugly interior edges. The white washer between the fender washer and the elbow is a “machine washer,” made of nylon. It’s there so that the backnut has a solid surface against which it can be tightened. Without the “machine washer,” you can’t get a tight fit between the elbow and the lid of the bucket. The machine washer is also a Hillman product…
I found some 3/4" ID silicone tubing on the web and bit the bullet for one metre of it. That tubing will allow me to use the hosebarb as seen below. Notice the diameter is molded into the item. To reiterate, the thread is the same as we see on one-inch transfer valves. Let the krausen rise! We’re prepared for a tidal wave of it…
