I have a new brew kettle and it comes with a valve stem that connects to a ball valve. The o-rings that are on the inside and outside of the kettle wall are fine and the nut secures the connection without leakage. (The red o-ring on the left in the accompanying picture.)
The joint between the threaded nipple coming out of the kettle and connecting to the ball valve has a leak. The rate is approximately 1 drop per 20 seconds. Obviously, I'm not worried about drowning
, but ideally, I don't want any leakage. No pipe dope was provided - I therefore assumed a physical connection would be enough, but no matter how tight, it still leaks. I loosened the joint to take the picture; when fully tightened up, the two faces are snugged up against each other.
My question: do I need to worry about "food-grade" pipe dope or just use the regular tape style from the hardware store? There appears to be pipe dope tape applied on the far right end of the assembly, but I don't know what brand they used or if its food grade or is that even an issue.
Help!
