Your Guide to Using a Camlock Fittings in Your Brewery
Whether you brew 10 or 10,000 gallons of beer at a time, knowing the ins and outs of your brewing hardware makes you more able, adept, and efficient.
You can better converse with suppliers as well as fellow brewers. You become more knowledgeable of how to care for your equipment.
And you can, in the end, brew a better glass of beer.
Why? Because you know exactly the best equipment to use for the job at hand.
Some of that equipment is well-known and well-discussed. A visit to any homebrew forum will find the battle lines drawn, for example, between the tri-clamp crowd and the camlock crews.
Today, we’re going to take a close and careful look at an often overlooked piece of homebrewing hardware — the adapter that joins those camlock fittings and tri-clamp fittings together.
Here’s what we’ll discuss:
A Brief Overview of Tri-Clamp and Camlock Fittings
What a Tri-Clamp to Camlock Adapter Does
How We Can Meet Your Tri-Clamp to Camlock Adapter Needs
A Brief Overview of Tri-Clamp and Camlock Fittings
Before we can talk about an adapter that involves the two most common and popular types of homebrew connections, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of their differences.
Tri-Clamp Fittings
Tri-clamp fittings are a subset of sanitary fittings made of highly polished food-grade stainless steel.
They are commonly used in the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries, as they are versatile and adaptable to many situations, as well as easily cleaned and maintained to sanitary requirements.
They are composed of two flanged ends called ferrules, a gasket, and a clamp to hold the connection and its seal secure.
You need to adjust the clamp and tighten the seal by hand to ensure a leak-free, tight connection. It can take some “fiddling” to get it just right.
Many homebrew systems come with tri-clamp fittings already in place, welded to the tuns.
Homebrewers appreciate them for their sanitary, tight, and secure seals. Nothing leaks through a healthy tri-clamp connection.
What many don’t appreciate, however, is the fact that tri-clamps have the nickname “three-hand clamps,” as they are not easily connected or disconnected and often require time, effort, and in many cases, a few choice words to get the job done.
This is why camlock fittings are so popular among the homebrewing crowd.
Camlock Fittings
Camlock fittings are also known as cam and groove fittings. They consist of a male groove adapter and a female coupler.
They’re found more commonly in chemical, petroleum, agricultural, military, and other similar industries. Their ability to connect hoses and outlets without tools makes them ideal for pumper trucks and fuel haulers, and anything else from dairy farms to gas stations.
However, camlock couplings are quite popular among homebrewing enthusiasts, as they are one of the “little things” that can make home brewing easy and more enjoyable.
As one brewer says, there’s nothing like rushing to switch off the tap with one hand while dialing 911 to treat your latest brewing-related burn with the other.
Camlock couplings can help avoid that pain and problem.
Camlock fittings are easy to use. Slide the proper-sized male end into the female coupler, lower the levers with just hand pressure, and you create a secure, tight seal. Raise the levers and pull the connection apart for a quick and easy disconnect.
The grooves in the male adapter “lock” into the seal inside the female coupler. As long as you have the proper size and a healthy fitting, you’re guaranteed a solid, leak-proof seal every time.
Nothing could be simpler when it comes time to switch hoses from one tun to the other. No more scalding, no more leaking, or spraying everywhere. No more brew day hassles.
Unless your tuns have welded tri-clamp outlets and your hoses camlock fittings.
What a Tri-Clamp to Camlock Adapter Does
In short, a tri-clamp to camlock adapter makes it possible for you to use those camlock fitted hoses with your tri-clamp fitted tun, and just the opposite.
The Good News About Camlock to Tri Clamp Adapters
Features of tri-clamp to camlock adapters include:
- Both male and female connector styles available
- Stainless steel construction to ensure sanitary brewing
- A full range of industry-standard sizes
- Relatively inexpensive compared to buying all-new fittings or hoses to make the proper connections
Tri-clam to camlock adapters gives you the best of both worlds, as you can use both popular camlocks and tri-clamps in your brewing setup.
If you have a three-tier system with two pumps, you may have to make and break several connections on brew day. Tri clamps alone can get messy and time-consuming.
It will make life much more bearable to have quick connects and disconnects available by using camlock fittings and adapters to keep everything flowing freely and easily.
One last benefit of tri-clamp to camlock adapters: they give you piece of mind when upgrading or replacing parts of your setup. You don’t have to worry about finding the “right” kind of fittings or fitting anything into your budget.
The adapters do that heavy lifting for you — the best of both worlds.
And Now, the Bad News…
As with anything and everything else in the homebrew world, you have to take a bit of bad with the good.
There is one noticeable disadvantage with camlocks, tri clamps, and the adapters that mate two. This hardware does get hot when carrying hot liquid or on the brew kettles and requires protective gloves when handling.
How Sanitary Fittings Can Put the Best of Both Worlds in Your Homebrew Setup
Whether you need to upgrade or replace portions of your homebrew system, Sanitary Fittings has got you covered.
We carry Steel and O’Brien’s 3 A certified line of both tri-clamp to male camlock and tri-clamp to female camlock fitting adapters.
Our camlock to tri-clamp adapters:
- Are made of food grade 316L stainless steel alloy
- Range in size from ½ inch to 4 inches
- Are covered by Steel and O’Brien’s one year from shipping warranty
One are to note: We don’t normally carry any tri-clamp to camlock adapters in stock; therefore, it will take 7 to 10 days before your order ships. Keep this in mind when placing your order.
Make brew day as hassle-free, painless, and enjoyable as possible by using our Steel and O’Brien tri-clamp to camlock adapters.