Stainless Steel Braiding for Home Breweries

One home brewing modification that I recently did was covering all of my high temp home brewing silicone tubing in stainless steel.  It was a quick and painless process and there were several benefits.  Probably the biggest benefit was that it reduced the kinking in my tubes.  This meant that I could cut my tubes shorter which helped to prevent wasted wort.  Another major benefit of covering my homebrew hoses in stainless steel braiding was making the hoses easier to handle. After your have been pumping super hot wort through the hoses for a while, they have start becoming difficult to hold.  The stainless steel braid helps insulate the tubing.  Lastly, I think it looks great. This was a really affordable way to make a big impact on the appearance of my home brewery.

Here is the stainless steel home brewing hose cover that I used:

Home Brewing Stainless Steel Half Inch Braid for Homebrew Tube

Here are some photos of the finished project and some of the stainless steel home brewing fittings and valves that I used in the project.

 

The above photo illustrates how it works. I swapped out the existing ball valve and added in 3 mini stainless steel ball valves as well as a stainless steel 1/2″ tee fitting and 2 90 degree stainless steel elbows. The whole process only took about 30 minutes to complete. I then covered the high temp silicone tubing with stainless steel braiding to make them easier to handle, reduce kinking and make it look a little sharper. Here is a list of all of the parts that I purchase for the project:

 

3  – Stainless Steel Mini Ball Valves for Home Brewing

 

2 – Stainless Steel .5″ Elbows for Homebrew

 

4 Pack of .5″ Stainless Steel Quick Connects and Stainless Steel Quick Disconnects for Homebrewing

I can’t say enough about these stainless steel quick disconnects for home brewing.  They save me a ton of time when it comes to connecting and disconnecting hoses.  It makes it a real snap to clean up as well.

Everything worked out great on the stainless steel home brewing hose project. After I had completed my work,  I tested all of the new connections for leaks and cleaned all of the parts well with a hot mixture of PBW home brewing cleaner and water.

Just a couple of tips that might make your install a little easier. Initially the stainless steel braiding was too tight for me to fit the silicone home brewing hoses in. So I ran a small .5″ pipe through it first to stretch it out and then inserted the silicone tubing and that made getting on the tube much easier.