So, I have new kettle with a ball valve, and I’m wondering about sanitization. I’m using an immersion chiller, so the wort will already be cool when it passes through.
What’s the best way to sanitize the valve? Run some boiling water through, before the wort boil? Spray a little iodophor in there with a spray bottle? Or, does it just get hot enough from the boil to sanitize? That leads to another question: is it safe to have a hose on the barb during the boil?
Thanks in advance…
As long as the valve is clean before each brew session, a quick spray of iodophor or starsan is more than enough to sanitize the parts that don’t get hot enough (if there are any). As far as leaving a hose attached, I regularly have the high-temp silicone tubing attached during the boil without any problems, but I did have a problem with the clear vinyl tubing melting before I switched to silicone. If the flame is too close to the valve, you could make a heat shield from a metal plate.
Seems to me that it gets hot enough to sanitize, especially if it was clean to begin with. It’s how I use mine and no infections have resulted.
Yeah, that valve is going to get hot enough to sanitize it during the boil. I try to remember to spray some sanitizer on it before I do the transfer, but I rarely do and haven’t had any problems.
Thanks for the input; it’s much appreciated!
I recirculate boiling wort using a pump. You can get a pan or pot and use it to recirculate some boiling wort, and that should do the job.
Tubercle has a SS ball valve on his boil kettle. Due to the fact that some debris was noticed in the threads of the valve once during a boil and a finger was stuck in the valve to remove said debris, Tubercle can testify in open court as an expert witness that it is his opinion that the valve gets hot enough to sanitize the surface, or in this case, to partially remove skin.
I routinely use either StarSan spray or isopropyl alcohol wipes to the external and internal aspects of the hose barb before opening up the valve to drain the BK. It is probably overkill. And yes–I wait until it has cooled down before doing that.
I do the same for cleaning and sanitizing the plastic hose barbs on the fermentor buckets before hooking up the transfer tubing.
In 20 years I don’t think it ever even occurred to me that it was necessary to sanitize the ball valve…and I never have. Seems to me that it gets plenty hot heating my mash liquor and boiling the wort. It has never presented a problem.
I will state that I have one of those nice Blichmann 3 piece ball valves that you can disassemble and clean. After 3 years or so I might take it apart and look to see it there is gunk built up.
Same here.
I spray the internal cavity with starsan solution prior to every session. I have never had a problem with it and I am not concerned about it.
That being said…My motto is…better to be safe than sorry. 
Thanks, everyone