Mostly O-rings

Today's post is mostly about o-rings. Not the most exciting topic, but o-rings are pretty vital to homebrewers especially once you get into things like kegging, a pump, or decide to throw together a weldless kettle fitting. Not to sound like a grumpy old man, but I swear you used to be able to buy all sorts of o-rings at local hardware stores for super reasonable prices; I'm talking less than 10 cents each. Now you go somewhere like Lowe's, Home Depot, or even Ace Hardware and you'll be lucky to find the size you need and/or it only comes in an assortment pack that costs $10-$20. Or say in the case specialty brewing equipment like homebrew pumps, you order from the manufacturer and you pay $5+ for a single o-ring plus $7 to ship it. I believe in supporting the homebrewing industry, but I have a hard time paying inflated prices for something that likely costs a couple cents to manufacture. 

If you're looking for a good supplier of o-rings and similar gaskets, I highly recommend O-rings and More. They have a huge selection plus reasonable prices and very affordable shipping. They do often have minimums (e.g. 5, 10, 50 pieces) but with their pricing, you're still coming out way ahead.   

Side note, I always use silicone lubricant (AKA Keg Lube) on my o-rings. It doesn't take much, but it helps to ensure they seat correctly when assembling equipment and prevents issues with binding and deforming. Material-wise, I tend to use either Silicone or Buna Nitrile rings, and both tend to be 70 durometer hardness. Basically, the higher the hardness, the firmer the material, the lower the softer the material. It's also a good idea to make sure the materials are food safe, but I haven't ever seen any that aren't. Also, Buna-N tends to be less permeable to O2, so I usually use it for keg lids rather than Silicone. 

I'll update this post as I come across additional o-ring needs, but here are the common ones I've encountered so far.

 

Keg and Draft O-rings
Description	Size	Comments
Dip Tubes	-109	The o-rings that slide onto dip tubes (gas and liquid) and seal them against the threaded male posts on the kegs. Use a quad or x-ring style as this will provide much better sealing than a standard round cross section o-ring. This is especially true if you run any high pressure kegs (e.g. nitro beers). I believe I've only ever used Buna-N for these.
Internal Ball-lock	-013	The o-rings that are internal on standard ball-lock disconnects (grey gas, black liquid). I believe it's the same size on standard pin-lock kegs as well. These are easily lost during cleaning. If missing, your disconnect will leak. Quad or x-ring styles seal better.
Keg Lids	-417	The large o-ring that seals between the lid and keg body. Both Buna and Silicone work well, though Buna-N is more common.
Posts	-111	These slide onto the posts and prevent leaks between posts and quick disconnects. Silicone tends to last longer than Buna-N. I often use natural red, but recently switched to green ones from Value Brew to quickly identify gas posts.

Blichmann Equipment O-rings
Description	Size	Comments
G2 Linear Valves	-112 and -110	The G2 linear valve has two sizes of o-rings. -112 is the larger and prevents liquid from leaking out the valve body. -110 is the smaller one that seals the cone-shaped stopper that is used to control the rate of flow. By the way, I love these valves as they are super easy to clean and make fine adjustments to flow rate.
Riptide Pump	-143	This is the large o-ring that provides the seal between the pump head and the motor.
Riptide Pump Thrust Washer	See comment	Not an o-ring, but a part that's easy to lose is the thrust washer on a Riptide pump head. I found that a standard Hillman 6mm stainless steel washer worked perfectly. I bought a pack at Lowes but I'm not seeing them currently in the Lowe's app. As long as the finish looks nice and smooth, any 6mm stainless washer should work.
False Bottom Washer	See comment	Not an o-ring, but a washer that slides over the kettle pickup tube and prevents grain from getting through the gap and under the false bottom. A standard 1/2" x 1 1/2" stainless fender washer will do the trick here.

Spike Equipment O-rings
Description	Size	Comments
Flo Pump ARV	-012	The o-ring for the Air Release Valve. I haven't confirmed the size on this part, but I saw it referenced online so I've included it here.
Flo Pump Head	66418MMS	This is the large o-ring that provides the seal between the pump head and the motor. It's a metric o-ring measuring 66.4mm ID x 70mm OD x 1.8mm C/S. The size referenced here is O-rings and More's SKU.

SS Brewtech Equipment O-rings
Description	Size	Comments
Bucket valve	16220MMB70	The o-ring that fits between the valve and the body of the SS Brew Bucket. I always use silicone lube on these and be sure not to overtighten them. You want them finger tight, but not so tight that they're deforming or tearing. The size on my buckets are 16mm ID. The C/S on mine vary between 2.2 and 2.3 mm. On SS Brewtech's site, they indicate the C/S is 1.8mm, so this may be an updated size compared to what came with mine. I haven't ordered any yet, but I'd likely go with 16mm ID x 20.4mm OD x 2.2mm C/S which would be SKU 16220MMB70 on O-rings and More.
Bucket racking arm	851MMB70	These are the two small o-rings that slide over the racking arm then allow the racking arm to push-fit into the valve body. The buckets came with two of these on the racking arm, but they work fine with one. Be sure to use silicone grease on them as they tend to bind and/or deform when used without lube. If lost or damaged, you'll lose siphon and leave beer behind in your fermenter. I've tried both Buna-N (OEM from SS Brewtech) and Silicone and the Buna-N ones seem to be more durable. These o-rings measure 8.5mm ID x 10.5mm OD x 1mm C/S and the size listed here is the SKU on O-rings and More's site.

Misc O-rings
Description	Size	Comments
Heating Element	-217	This was used primarily for heating elements on The Electric Brewery style assemblies. These aren't too common anymore with people buying off-the-shelf All-in-One systems. Also, those building their own systems are typically using Tri-Clamp style elements rather than threaded elements.
Temp Probe	-009	This o-ring is used in a compression type fitting in conjunction with a 1/4" diameter temp probe like those used with the BCS-460 controller. These will also work as the outer o-ring on Blichmann Brew Commander temp probe fittings. They create a tight leak-free fitting that can also be easily disassembled.
Old School Weldless	-211	These were often used on old school 1/2" weldless bulkhead fittings, aka The Electric Brewery style fittings. Typically these would be used with a thin washer. The thin washer's ID was slightly larger than the o-ring's OD, and served to keep the o-ring from squeezing out while the fitting was tightened. The washer became less important as locknuts with grooves became more common. Regardless, this o-ring is used primarily in 1/2" bulkheads. I've used these in equipment I've repurposed for brewing so that I could have leak-free bulkheads.

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British Brown Ale 2025

Today I'm brewing another beer designed around using up some specialty malts that I've collected. Like my recent Irish Extra Stout, this recipe is based on an NHC medal winner. This one is based on Jarrett Long and John Bates entry named Cheerio British Brown Ale, gold medal winner in 2024 NHC. For this beer I'm using the Brown Balanced (18-30 SRM) water profile in Beersmith. This should help support the malt character without being overly sweet/malty. The 2021 BJCP guidelines describe the style as follows:

A malty, caramelly, brown British ale without the roasted flavors of a Porter. Balanced and flavorful, but usually a little stronger than most average UK beers. 

I don’t believe I’ve ever used Crisp Brown Malt before. This is one of the malts I got in a judge grab bag and have been wanting to try it out in a recipe. On the Crisp website it includes the following descriptors:

Lightly roasted flavor notes, milky coffee undertones, hits of sweet pastries. The color is produced in the same manner as Amber, but is roasted for a slightly more extended period to achieve a nutty, roasted dryness with a light brown hue, perfect for brown ales and mild beers. 

I tasted a few grains and I’d say it’s definitely roasty, surprisingly so considering it’s a light brown color. That said, it’s not a harsh roast like you might get with darker roast malt. I think it’s going to go really well with the malt contribution from Maris Otter and Crystal malts. 

I went with 11 gallons distilled water for this recipe. That’s more water than I really need but I want to make sure my volume into the fermenter is as close to 5 gallons as possible. I'm also going to keep a close eye on boiling vigor so that I don’t end up with overly 

Target OG 1.052

Target FG: 1.013

IBU: 24

ABV: 5.1

7 lb 1oz Crisp Maris Otter

11 oz Crisp Brown

11 oz Crisp Crystal 60

3 oz. Simpsons Pale Chocolate

1g BrewTan B (Mash)

2 oz. East Kent Goldings (60 min)

4.66g BCAA (10 min)

Yeast Nutrient

Whirlfloc

Zinc Buddy

Lalbrew Verdant IPA

Mash for 60 minutes at 152°F. Ferment at 65°F for 10 days.

Water Profile

Target Water Profile
Ca	Mg	Na	SO4	Cl	HCO3
50	10	27	70	55	90

To 11 gallons RO/distilled water, add the following:

• 1.87g Gypsum
• 4.73g Epsom salt
• 4.73g Calcium chloride
• 4.4g Baking soda
• 0.99g Chalk

Brewing Notes

A couple minor issues today. One of my temp probes, the one I was using on the BK developed a short, so it was reading sporadic temps. I was able to position the wire in a way that it started reading consistent albeit a little lower than actual temps (196 vs 207). The other issue, I had this blog post open on my tablet and my phone and I didn’t realize it wasn’t saving my gravity and pH readings for the middle measurements, so those were from memory and may not be entirely accurate. 

Other than that, things went well. Chilling also worked well again. The post-boil gravity read ~ 13.8/1.054 on the refractometer whereas the Tilt put it spot on at 1.052.

Session Readings
Beginning mash pH	5.18
Ending mash pH	5.20
1st running gravity	16 (1.064)*
Pre-Boil gravity	9 (1.035)*
Pre-Boil pH	5.2*
Post-Boil gravity	13.8 (1.054); Tilt=1.052
Post-Boil pH	5.13

Wort has been oxygenated, yeast pitched, Zinc Buddy pitched, and it’s in the ferm chamber sitting at 64F.

Update 12/8/2025

Gravity is reading 1.042 this morning on the Tilt. It started showing signs of gravity change about 5-6 hours after pitching, so it seems the yeast pitch was quite healthy and things are moving right along.

I forgot to mention one thing. I bought this app called Multi Timer that's kind of cool. I got it more for coffee roasting, but it essentially lets you set multiple timers, group them, and start them all at once. I've screwed up a couple coffee roasting sessions because I stepped away and forgot what I was doing, or I miss-timed one of the steps. I think it could well for brewing, especially if you have multiple hop additions you're trying to keep track of. This British Brown Ale was super straightforward, but here's an example of how I used it. 

Update 12/9/2025

Gravity is currently reading 1.020. Fermentation has been super active causing the Tilt to wobble and record measurements ranging from 1.020 to 1.035 in a matter of hours. It seems to be settling down today showing more consistent measurements. 

Update 12/14/2025

Gravity is currently sitting at 1.010 per the Tilt. That’s a little lower than I was anticipating so I’ll confirm with a hydrometer and/or corrected refractometer reading when I keg the beer. 

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Irish Extra Stout 2025

Thanksgiving weekend brew day! I mostly keep base malts on hand but I've acquired a bunch of specialty grains in judge swag bags, as competition prizes, etc. I decided I better brew some recipes to use up some of these grains rather than perpetually storing them.

For today's beer, I'm brewing an Irish Extra Stout. This recipe is based on one of the medal winning recipes from NHC, specifically Paul’s Irish Extra Stout by Paul Sorice Jr., gold medal winner from 2022. I haven't had a chance to meet Paul yet, but he's in the Pinellas Urban Brewers Guild, the same club I just joined a couple weeks ago. I'm modifying the recipe slightly, including the brewing water (I'm using the Black Balanced (Over 31 SRM) water profile in Beersmith). I don't believe I've ever brewed anything specifically intended to be an Irish Extra Stout, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a try. It's my first time using Coffee Malt in a recipe. The 2021 BJCP style guidelines describe this style as follows:

A fuller-bodied black beer with a pronounced roasted flavor, often similar to coffee and dark chocolate with some malty complexity. The balance can range from moderately bittersweet to bitter, with the more balanced versions having up to moderate malty richness and the bitter versions being quite dry. 

I'm not shooting for an overly dry and bitter version. I'm hoping the selected grain bill and water profile will result in a nicely balanced beer. Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today: 

Target OG 1.058

Target FG: 1.014

IBU: 36

ABV: 6

7 lb. 14oz Maris Otter pale malt 

6 oz. Carafa III malt (Cold steeped and added to BK during sparge)

6 oz. Simpson's Pale Chocolate malt

6 oz. Briess Victory malt

6 oz Simpson's Coffee malt

3 oz. Simpson's Double Roasted Crystal malt

1.25 oz. (35 g) Cluster, 6.5% AA @ 60 min

0.5 oz. (14 g) Cluster, 6.5% AA @ 15 min

4.66g BCAA (10 min)

Yeast Nutrient (Flameout)

Whirlfloc (Flameout)

Zinc Buddy (Added at pitch)

Fermentis Safale S-04

Mash at 153F. Ferment at 64°F for 12 days. Raise to 68°F on day 13 and hold for 3 days.

Water Profile

Target Water Profile
Ca	Mg	Na	SO4	Cl	HCO3
50	10	33	57	44	142

As mentioned above, I'm deviating from the water profile listed on the AHA's website. To 10 gallons of distilled/RO water, add the following:

• 5.4g Epsom salt
• 3.3g Calcium chloride
• 5.2g Baking soda
• 2.7g Chalk

Brewing Notes

No issues other than my gravity is a few points high. I believe this is due to more boil off than I was anticipating rather than higher than normal efficiency. So, I still need to dial that in a bit. I’m happy to say I think I’ve figured out my chilling process. Essentially I’m chilling down to about 99F with groundwater temps. Then I turn the pump on for the pre-chiller setup which is a Blichmann plate chiller connected to an ice water reservoir. With this setup, I was able to chill down to about 57F. I still had quite a bit of ice left too, so I think I could have easily gotten it down to 50F.

Session Readings
Beginning mash pH	5.18
Ending mash pH	5.18
1st running gravity	16.8 (1.067)
Pre-Boil gravity	10.5 (1.041)
Pre-Boil pH	5.18
Post-Boil gravity	15.5 (1.061)
Post-Boil pH	5.09

One thing worth mentioning, my Tilt Hydrometers' batteries both died on me before I moved to Florida. I figured I'd address that once I got settled in Florida. I'm happy to say I replaced the batteries, recalibrated both Tilts, and will be using one on this brew. I find Tilts most useful for lager fermentations as it helps me decide when to perform a diacetyl rest, but I use them in my ale fermentations as well. The only time I don't use them is in wild/mixed fermentations, but I may try that at some point if I can find someone looking to offload one for cheap. In Utah I used an old cell phone for logging, but I decided to buy a Tilt Pico to use in place of the phone. The Tilt Pico is a Raspberry Pi-based device that functions as a Bluetooth to WiFi bridge and eliminates the need for a cell phone. The cell phone solution worked ok, but my phone would periodically crash or reboot after an update and I'd lose logging data until I managed restart the Tilt app. I'm hoping the Tilt Pico is more stable.

Update 11/30/2025 7:15AM

Things are moving along today. The current gravity reading is 1.053 and temps are holding at 64F, although temps got as high as 66F for a short period. I may need to recalibrate the probe on my temp controller. I forgot to mention, I added White Labs Zinc Buddy to this batch. I didn't realize WL was selling this product and it was a little hard to find, but a friend of mine uses it and recommended it (more on his beer in an upcoming post). It's basically a sterile zinc solution that you can add directly to your fermenter and it supports yeast health. Here's a link to more info on WL.

Update 12/1/2025 8:00AM

Fermentation is still chugging along. I ended up dropping the temp controller one degree, just in case the probe was slightly off. Current readings from the Tilt are 1.025 and 64F with an average temp of 63.9F. The Tilts do wobble during active fermentation, so it likely isn’t exactly 1.025, but very close to it; for example, there are a couple readings where it recently read 1.027, then 1.024, then back to 1.027 then the most recent at 1.025.

Update 12/2/2025 9:45AM

Fermentation seems to be winding down. I went ahead and raised the temp setting on my controller to 67F and I'm letting it free rise. Current readings are 1.020. I'm hoping to get closer to the stated FG for the recipe, 1.014.  

Update 12/3/2025

Fermentation has definitely slowed, but gravity is still dropping a little bit. Today the tilt is reading a hair below 1.020 at about 1.019551. Yesterday's 1.020 was actually measuring at 1.020580, so about a 1 point drop.

Update 12/7/2025

Today we're at 1.018522 on the Tilt, so still dropping albeit very slowly.

Update 12/14/2025

Gravity is at 1.018522 per the Tilt, so I think fermentation is complete. FG is a little higher than I was shooting for, but I tried a small sample and it doesn’t taste overly sweet or cloying. I’m cleaning a keg and will hopefully get it kegged by end of day.

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