fitting a spigot

[the_bing]

howdy gang

I'm currently using a simple FV with no spigot and siphoning out the beer once done.

if i fit a spigot onto a FV which is currently without, how high from the bottom should i fit it? indeed, is this possible/a good idea?

 

[Fil]

i use taps on some FV's Waddington and Duval hoselock style water but taps are afaik made from a foodsafe plastic and thats what i use..

mount em about 3-4 inches from the bottom, so you can draw clean beer off the sediment, and when the level drops close to the top of the outlet the mass/volume left is light enough to allow a steady tip to keep the outlet submerged while you drain off the last clear beer off the sediment.

a tap is very usefull for pulling a sample out for a gravity check, BUT if u use it for that clean out the spout when done as a film of beer will attract fungus gnats or wine flys and all the nasties they harbour, a squeezy bottle of warm cleaning soulution squirted up followed by a rinsing squirt and before draining a sanitising squirt too

 

[morethanworts]

I like my primary bucket tapless, I have to say. Nice, clean unbroken plastic, easy to clean and fewer places for nasties to hide. It doesn't take much to make our small batches go off. I just prefer a tap on the bottling bucket only.

 

[the_bing]

oh man, now i can't decide what to do.

To spigot or not to spigot, that is the question...

 

[iceo]

do both get 2 fv one for primary(without) and one for secondary(with) a tap on the secondary makes bottling easier

 

[morethanworts]

Fit a Little Bottler to the second bucket and just siphon out of the first.

 

[iceo]

+1 to the little bottler

i dont even have a fv i use 2 old brown pressure barrels as fv one with a small tap that i use to syphon into my secondary for priming then into bottles with the help of a bottler

 

[LeithR]

I would fit a tap to one of your buckets - if you don't currently have 2 buckets get another one, it will be useful - but I would fit it high enough that the tap does not touch the floor (so it doesn't pick up any nasties) but no higher than that so maybe an inch or 1.5 inches above the bottom of the bucket. I then put a rubber bung under the bucket to tilt it towards the tap for maximum draining. You should still have enough space under the tap to avoid the yeast cake on the bottom.

 

[morethanworts]

I would fit it high enough that the tap does not touch the floor (so it doesn't pick up any nasties) but no higher than that so maybe an inch or 1.5 inches above the bottom of the bucket.

The Little Bottler tap rotates and can be turned away from the floor while racking, so it can go pretty low. If it's just a bottling bucket, you want it as low as reasonably possible: there won't be any yeast cake to avoid.

 

[rpt]

I have two identical FVs with taps. The tap on the primary makes taking hydrometer samples easy - I always found using a turkey baster a pain and it would be even harder now I ferment in a fridge. The other FV is a bottling bucket with a little bottler. If I use a secondary for dry hopping or lagering then I can still use the primary FV as my bottling bucket.

My taps were pre fitted. They are about 4cm from the bottom, measured to the centre of the hole.