Coupling Valves and threaded Taps

Nothing ruins a transfer day faster than a tap that will not seal or a thread that turns out to be the wrong pitch. This is the plumbing that connects fermenters, drums, barrels and kegs, and it is worth getting right once.

Most home fermenters and drums run a 19mm thread, so that is where the plastic taps sit. There is a white plastic fermenter tap at 19mm, and Ferrari taps at 19mm with either a 16mm outlet and red handle or an 8mm outlet to take hose straight off. The small parts matter just as much: a spare 19mm tap nut, a reducer for the white drum tap, and a red sediment reducer for the Ferrari tap so you draw off above the lees rather than through them.

When you want a positive shut off, move to metal. Algor ball valves, a Kegland stainless ball valve at half inch BSP for draining a keg, an Algor half inch BSP sample valve in 316 stainless, nickel plated brass ball valves for larger openings, and a Kegland barrel tap valve with a 10mm parallel shank. Butterfly valves come as a 15mm plastic version and a 2 inch triclover to 2 inch BSM male for tank work.

Bring the old tap in, or at least a photo of the thread. Measuring across the outside of a plastic thread is how most people end up with the wrong one.

See us at Laverton North or Epping, or browse triclover and camlock fittings, thread adapters and orings and gaskets.