Went to Lowes & asked if they were the guys that match prices or if it was Home boy Depot. They said that it was them, So I put the 52 dollar 10-gallon cooler on the counter & said that the store price for the same item at HD is $39.65. She looked it up and it wasn’t. It was $36.95 at home boy’s so that’s what I got it for. Then I went home to disect the thing, see what I needed:
The 3 thingys at the bottom of the pic are the valve and seal assembly from the cooler. I purchased the ball valve, nipple, thick 5/8 washer, a 1/4-NPT bayonet fitting (not shown) and a union. I also added a length of electrical conduit as a spacer and a 16mm thrust washer. I could have gotten a shorter nipple, but you know how guys are about nipples….. Moving right along…..
Assembling the new system, I used the seal and nut that came with the cooler and the other items mentioned. It looks like this when it is all together:
I boiled the off the shelf items to cleanse off the coolant and etc. from the parts that are no doubt still on ‘em when you buy them and cooled them in cold water to allow me to assemble them. After applying nylon thread dope and putting them together the whole thing looks like this on the inside (with my false bottom installed) and when sitting next to a 5 gallon carboy full of beer:
I thought that I lost the bayonet fitting that screws into the 1/4-NPT union, but it was in my pocket. It isn’t shown in the first pic for that very reason. Now that I have a cooler to use for mashing I can retire my old sleeping bag that I have always wrapped around a bucket. Of course, now I have an extra bottling bucket. Maybe I can swap it for something….
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