Racking arm wont fit- angled "stand pipe" or no?

[brain medicine]

so we grabbed some little 2bbl ferms on the covid-downsize trajectory and figured changing them over from kombucha to beer wouldnt be an issue other than cleaning like crazy and sanitizing the hell out of them. but somehow we missed that we've got a problem- doesnt look like we'll be able to get racking arms in there.

its a standard 60 cone. about 2ish inches of steel and insulation. there is a "racking arm port" on the cone, but its only about 7/8 diameter and runs 3.5" deep from tc flange face to the inner tank wall.

so im guessing any racking tube over about 1/2" diameter with a normal bend (45 degree) in it would be too large/wide to get through the 7/8 port. so at that point ive got the option of taking a racking arm with a decently long throw (say 6" min) and just cutting it off at the elbow so its no longer bent into an "arm" but just a straight tube.

essentially its a standpipe. the issue is that without being able to angle the opening downwards, hops and yeast and crap are going to just fall into it. nothing can really do about that without a bend in the tubing.

but- at that point, do i really need the stand pipe? i could basically just put a butterfly on the port and dump out whatever falls into it. is it really worth cutting up a bunch of $75-100 racking arms at that point? am i making too much of an issue out of this?

[lhall]

For that size a tank I wouldn't worry. Dump the cone to beer, let it sit for a few more days, and then rack from the racking port. You will lose some beer still left in the cone. With experience you will know how much to dump from the cone to not lose much beer.

[Derrick]

so we grabbed some little 2bbl ferms on the covid-downsize trajectory and figured changing them over from kombucha to beer wouldnt be an issue other than cleaning like crazy and sanitizing the hell out of them. but somehow we missed that we've got a problem- doesnt look like we'll be able to get racking arms in there.

its a standard 60 cone. about 2ish inches of steel and insulation. there is a "racking arm port" on the cone, but its only about 7/8 diameter and runs 3.5" deep from tc flange face to the inner tank wall.

so im guessing any racking tube over about 1/2" diameter with a normal bend (45 degree) in it would be too large/wide to get through the 7/8 port. so at that point ive got the option of taking a racking arm with a decently long throw (say 6" min) and just cutting it off at the elbow so its no longer bent into an "arm" but just a straight tube.

essentially its a standpipe. the issue is that without being able to angle the opening downwards, hops and yeast and crap are going to just fall into it. nothing can really do about that without a bend in the tubing.

but- at that point, do i really need the stand pipe? i could basically just put a butterfly on the port and dump out whatever falls into it. is it really worth cutting up a bunch of $75-100 racking arms at that point? am i making too much of an issue out of this?

For 2bbl fermenters, it also is OK to work without racking arm. And we can serve beer from drain port directly. With 60