Copper, PVC, or ???

[tariq khan]

Pex

My advice would be to check with your glycol supplier before making any moves, it'll save you a lot of hassle. I wish I had done that first !

T

[Ted R.]

pex

We ran a copper header with pex drops. You can run pex for the header but it will sag.

[fdkassik]

My advice would be to check with your glycol supplier before making any moves, it'll save you a lot of hassle. I wish I had done that first !

Hmmmm do different manufactures of glycol have different charactaristics?? Tariq, what problems did you have??
Thanks Ted for the Idea!
Frank Kassik
Kassik's Brewery

[tariq khan]

Glycol Pipework

Hmmmm do different manufactures of glycol have different charactaristics?? Tariq, what problems did you have??
Thanks Ted for the Idea!
Frank Kassik
Kassik's Brewery

Frank,

Basically after the pipework was installed one of my fv's started leaking at the joint where the pipe goes into the fv. The piping was replaced (again with PVC sch 40).
3 months later same thing, then they ALL started leaking in the same spot.
I spoke to a chemist at our supplier (Univar Canada). He told me PVC is not compatible with Dowfrost. I know other brewers who use regular glycol with PVC without any problems so I'm assuming there is something else in the Dowfrost (Anti-rust inhibitors ?).

T

[Faystin]

Pex

I am also looking at pex as an option. The only concern that has come up so far is sagging. So, if we use it, we will be looking into good support systems. Or, another option we are looking into is ABS on the horrizontal lines, and pex on all the drop downs, all with rigid insulation. Any thoughts?

Justin Fay

[dast]

Hi,
Some explanations regarding your questions regarding PVC and Propylene Glycol
Per the Compass Corrosion Guide, 1978 & 1983, page B77 the rating for Propylene Glycol vs. PVC is C. (Se explanation below).
Symbolic Swelling Loss of tensile strength Description of chemical attack
Rating
A <10% <15% Little or no chemical attack
B <15% <30% Good resistance(Minor chemical attack)
C <20% <50% Moderate chemical attack.
NR >20% >50% Attacked or dissolved.

Pricewise COOL-FIT ABS cost about 45-71% less than Copper depending on size and CU quality.
As a producer of PVC and C-PVC piping systems since over 50 years we can not recommend PVC for this application, it's not a question if will fail it's only a question of when it will fail.

Best Regards,

Dan Stromberg
GF Piping Systems

[Buster]

I am also looking at pex as an option. The only concern that has come up so far is sagging. So, if we use it, we will be looking into good support systems. Or, another option we are looking into is ABS on the horrizontal lines, and pex on all the drop downs, all with rigid insulation. Any thoughts?

Justin Fay

We have used PEX for 3 or 4 years now and have been completely happy with it and it's ease of use. We are also using TECTITE fittings AKA Sharkbites and they provide a union at every connection point. It makes your system very "flexible". I.e. if you have to warm a tank up because it crashed due to stuck solenoid, you can pull apart the tectite joints make a rig to hook a warm hose up to it and its done. In addition, we are always adding tanks, so it makes draining the glycol system alot easier with unions at every tank. We just cut in two new valves for 3 new 240 bbl fvs and because we had pex tectite fittings on the tanks before and after the cut in were able to drain easily and only ended up losing a couple of gallons into buckets. We only use PEX for the drops off the main header and on the tanks themselves. We then insulate with rigid insulation.

As far as supporting the pex, As long as your header is sturdy enough to support the weight of a full tube of pex, you should be fine. I spoke with a tectite rep concerning the weight limit of what they could hold before failure and it was something ridiculous, like 300-400 pounds. We are running 1 inch pex drops that are 20 feet long without any issues.

Another suggestion my plumber had for the sagging issue was to use schedule 40 on the outside and feed your pex through it. That would eliminate all the SCH40 glycol issues and sagging. You would just expose the pex wherever your drop was. We didn't end up having to do it because our header was to big. I could foresee a condensation/insulation issue with this possibly?


Matt Vincent

https://www.skabrewing.com

[sbradt]

use copper headers

Frank,

Basically after the pipework was installed one of my fv's started leaking at the joint where the pipe goes into the fv. The piping was replaced (again with PVC sch 40).
3 months later same thing, then they ALL started leaking in the same spot.
I spoke to a chemist at our supplier (Univar Canada). He told me PVC is not compatible with Dowfrost. I know other brewers who use regular glycol with PVC without any problems so I'm assuming there is something else in the Dowfrost (Anti-rust inhibitors ?).

T

I suspect that the root of this problem had less to do with the Dowfrost and more to do with heat. When you CIP your tanks, the glycol in the jackets picks up heat and it will transfer out into the piping a ways. We always plumb in the first 3-4 feet of glycol piping in copper and then switch to PVC to avoid leaking joints from expansion and contraction. I've also found that it works best at the transition from Copper to PVC to make sure that the PVC fitting is Male and the Copper fitting is female. I've fought with a lot of leakage issues when it was reversed.

[BrewinLou]

I thought the same thing Brad. We never run pvc to the tank. Just the header only, copper off the header to the tank.

In regards to the pex in conjunction with shark bite. I have piped a tank using these fittings and am not completely sold. As I was told if the pex does not go 100% straight in the shark bite fitting there will be minor leakage. It has been a year and I see a little leakage. I am thinking of going back and replacing the shark bites with ferrules and crimp on clamps.

[tariq khan]

Glycol pipework

I suspect that the root of this problem had less to do with the Dowfrost and more to do with heat. When you CIP your tanks, the glycol in the jackets picks up heat and it will transfer out into the piping a ways. We always plumb in the first 3-4 feet of glycol piping in copper and then switch to PVC to avoid leaking joints from expansion and contraction. I've also found that it works best at the transition from Copper to PVC to make sure that the PVC fitting is Male and the Copper fitting is female. I've fought with a lot of leakage issues when it was reversed.

Good point Steve, I hadn't really thought about CIP heating up the joint, makes perfect sense.
I'm sticking with copper though, no muss no fuss !

T

[dast]

Hi,
If you use a plastic to metal adapter/transition union (see pictures) with an O-ring seal you will not get this problem. Now you will have metal to metal threads connecting to the fermenters instead of plastic to metal threads. We always recommend using metal to metal threads instead of plastic to metal threads due to the leak problems you can get when you have temperature changes.

A note to problem with sagging pipe:
If you use COOL-FIT ABS Plus you will not get this problem due to the stiffness of the sandwich construction. You also will have 80% less expansion/contraction than PEX piping. You can easy switch COOL-FIT ABS piping (un-insulated) for the drops if you want. This will give you a very cost effective, energy efficient installation that is very quick and easy to install (please also observe that installation training is provided on site free of charge).


Cheers

Dan Strömberg
Market Segment Manager
Cooling & Refrigeration

GF Piping Systems
Georg Fischer LLC
2882 Dow Avenue, Tustin, CA, 92780
Tel. (714) 368-4196, Fax. (714) 368-4197
Cellular. (951) 642 2339
dan.stromberg@georgfischer.com

https://www.gfpiping.com

https://www.cool-fit.georgfischer.com

Georg Fischer - Adding Quality to People's Lives

[strandbrewing]

Originally Posted by sbradt
I suspect that the root of this problem had less to do with the Dowfrost and more to do with heat. When you CIP your tanks, the glycol in the jackets picks up heat and it will transfer out into the piping a ways. We always plumb in the first 3-4 feet of glycol piping in copper and then switch to PVC to avoid leaking joints from expansion and contraction. I've also found that it works best at the transition from Copper to PVC to make sure that the PVC fitting is Male and the Copper fitting is female. I've fought with a lot of leakage issues when it was reversed.

My experience is that it's actually a little more complicated than just the expansion and contraction.

I found that my jacket inlets were leaking (just small drips) and suspected temp swings and exp / cont. When I pulled the threaded fitting out to inspect it, I found that the inlet threads on the tanks were not tapered pipe threads, rather straight threads. It is a subtle difference but very important.

The solution was to use 2 - 3 times the normal teflon tape application and to screw the fitting in until it was butting the tank fitting on the flat flange (screwed in all the way, bottomed out). This basically sandwiched some of the escaping tape and created a teflon gasket between the faces of the two fittings.

A good seal can handle some swing in exp / cont. A just okay seal cannot.

[barleywhiner]

Pex

We have done the entire glycol system in PEX. Is it pretty? Nope, but it works. The header is 1.5", which you no longer need the very $$$ hydraulic tool for (Milwaukee sells one for ~$600) and the rest is either 1" or 3/4". The joints are rated to 150+ psi, it is well within the temperature range, is very flexible and it is easy as all hell to put together. Add on top of that that it's a fraction of the price of copper and I was sold. 11 months in and no leaks, knock on wood.

At this point, if I could have afforded it, I would have done the header in copper, if for nothing else than aesthetics, but I still would have dropped to the tanks in pex.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Jeff Erway
La Cumbre Brewing Co.

[barleywhiner]

My experience is that it's actually a little more complicated than just the expansion and contraction.

I found that my jacket inlets were leaking (just small drips) and suspected temp swings and exp / cont. When I pulled the threaded fitting out to inspect it, I found that the inlet threads on the tanks were not tapered pipe threads, rather straight threads. It is a subtle difference but very important.

The solution was to use 2 - 3 times the normal teflon tape application and to screw the fitting in until it was butting the tank fitting on the flat flange (screwed in all the way, bottomed out). This basically sandwiched some of the escaping tape and created a teflon gasket between the faces of the two fittings.

A good seal can handle some swing in exp / cont. A just okay seal cannot.

Hope I am not pointing out the obvious here, but a touch of pipe dope underneath about 3-4 layers of teflon tape goes a long way to getting an incredibly good seal. Makes fitting pipe a bit messy, but it works great.

[Rockhead]

Pex needs to be well supportd as it droops between the hangers and looks bad. Buy the power installation tool as oposed to the hand tool if using 3/4' or larger your hands will thank you and will be much faster.