Faulty Regulator?

I have a regulator that is about 4-5 months old, came from Morebeer when I bought my keg set up.

It has served me very well, maybe about 5 or so kegs so far.

I installed a splitter on it, so I can feed two kegs, and have had really no issues with it, until this past week.

I noticed last week that the pressure on the regulator started spiking really high. I also noticed that this happened when I was about to run out of gas on my last tank. I was wondering why it was happening last week, since its a brand new filled tank...

I had it connected to two kegs, one was full, the other had maybe a gallon left in it. I noticed that while carbing up the new keg, beer was being pushed out of the tap, and the pressure was jumping up to 30 plus PSI. I kept bleeding and lowering the pressure, but it would keep jumping.

I went away for the weekend, and decided to remove the tap line from the full keg, but left it on the nearly empty keg. When I got home last night, all the beer left from the keg that was hooked up had been pushed out through the tap. I had left the gas on the other full keg, and when I hooked up the tap, it was waaaaay overcarbed, giving me all foam.

Do I have a faulty regulator, or is there another issue going on here? I hooked up to another full keg to start carbing, and its holding steady at 12PSI.... It has not spiked at all since I hooked it up last night.

Now, how do I deal with my overcarbed keg? I removed the gas, and have been bleeding it off. Any other advice? Should I return this regulator and pick up a new one?

I have had a similar situation happen with the spike and then my CO2 tank emptying quickly so I'd like to subscribe to this thread.

I had mine set to 10 and it stayed there for a few days and then jumped up to 20 and my CO2 tank had lost a lot of gas, also on a brand new tank.

Bump

is your tank in the fridge or outside?

I had some pressure creep on my regulator. You may have some debris in the regulator itself and a quick disassembly/reassembly or just blowing at pressure through the regulator may assist this.

JDGator said:

is your tank in the fridge or outside?

Click to expand...

I keep it in the refrigerator. I have always done this, and its held steady at 12, just until the tank nears empty... Then, the gauge would spike very high, but was really just empty.

This last go, it was a new tank. It spiked high, so I thought I got a tank that was not full.... But, it was truly full, and it spiked and carbed the daylights outta both of my beers.

It seems to be holding OK now, but I am pretty worried about it. Ive got two brews on deck in kegs that I am really looking forward to, pretty expensive ones also. I'd hate to loose them to a bunk regulator. Is it wise to get a new regulator, or just sit tight and see how it goes?

DrunkleJon said:

I had some pressure creep on my regulator. You may have some debris in the regulator itself and a quick disassembly/reassembly or just blowing at pressure through the regulator may assist this.

Click to expand...

+1

I have had the same issue. Take apart the regulator as stated above, clean it, reassemble and you should be good.

DrunkleJon said:

I had some pressure creep on my regulator. You may have some debris in the regulator itself and a quick disassembly/reassembly or just blowing at pressure through the regulator may assist this.

Click to expand...

I know this thread is a few months old but hopefully you guys are still seeing updates. How would I go about disassembling/re-assembling a regulator?

I'm wondering if this may be the problem I am having. I have a 2-regulator setup (pic below). At present, I have the regulator closest to the high pressure gauge (left) set to 12 psi for a manifold I have it hooked to (serving 2 kegs).

The regulator closest to the tank (right) has the pressure adjustment screw all the way backed out because I have nothing currently hooked to it. I also have the gas shut off right before the tubing closed.

What I have noticed, is that even with the regulator screw backed all the way out, pressure slowly builds up on the low pressure gauge for this regulator. It takes about 2 days to go from 0 to about 8 psi. I have never let it go past that. If I pull the purge trigger, there is a quick, small "pfft" of CO2 and the gauge immediately pops back to 0.

Sounds like I may have either some debris or a leaky seal here. But I am not overly mechanically inclined and am a little leery about breaking into the regulator.

Any pointers or a link to an article or YouTube video would be appreciated.

One other question. If I hook up a keg to this regulator in its current condition, would I expect my beer to eventually become overcarbed?

Overcrabed kegs: shake, rest and bleed.. repeat.

winvarin said:

I know this thread is a few months old but hopefully you guys are still seeing updates. How would I go about disassembling/re-assembling a regulator?

I'm wondering if this may be the problem I am having. I have a 2-regulator setup (pic below). At present, I have the regulator closest to the high pressure gauge (left) set to 12 psi for a manifold I have it hooked to (serving 2 kegs).

The regulator closest to the tank (right) has the pressure adjustment screw all the way backed out because I have nothing currently hooked to it. I also have the gas shut off right before the tubing closed.

What I have noticed, is that even with the regulator screw backed all the way out, pressure slowly builds up on the low pressure gauge for this regulator. It takes about 2 days to go from 0 to about 8 psi. I have never let it go past that. If I pull the purge trigger, there is a quick, small "pfft" of CO2 and the gauge immediately pops back to 0.

Sounds like I may have either some debris or a leaky seal here. But I am not overly mechanically inclined and am a little leery about breaking into the regulator.

Any pointers or a link to an article or YouTube video would be appreciated.

One other question. If I hook up a keg to this regulator in its current condition, would I expect my beer to eventually become overcarbed?

Click to expand...

Take the reg off teh tank. Unscrew the large pice that the adjustment screw goes into from the main body. Use a large wrench and try not to damage any fitting coming off the reg. it should be obvious.

In you case I think you need to replace the inner valve so you will need a rebuild kit. Some online HBS have them.

So does my situation sound like pressure creep? Or is it expected that if I am passing through an "off" regulator to an "on" regulator, that the "off" regulator would pick up some minor pressure ?

winvarin said:

So does my situation sound like pressure creep? Or is it expected that if I am passing through an "off" regulator to an "on" regulator, that the "off" regulator would pick up some minor pressure ?

Click to expand...

No. The way you have them plumbed, the two regulators are on the same high pressure from the tank.

I would bet it's a faulty valve in the regulator, which should be replaceable.

Would it prove that definitively if I reversed them? If I put what I believe to be the good regulator closer to the tank and the problem goes away, then it is how I have them places. If it persists, then it is the suspect regulator?

Short answer: Wouldn't make any difference as they are both connected to tank pressure. The high pressure side is unrestricted flow from one side of the first reg to the other.

I'm going to break it open this weekend to see if there's any debris like an earlier post mentioned. The listing I saw on a brewshop site mentioned needing a torque wrench so that I could tighten it back to 75 ft/lbs. is that necessary? Or is really tight good enough?

There should be some "flats" on the back of the regulator body.
Don't try to remove the regulator body "dome", ( where the adjusting screw passes through), by relying on the plumbing / tubing that mounts it to the tank.
The "flats" are so that you can put it in a vise to hold for dis-assembly and assembly, and that would be the thing to use.
Put some paint stir sticks against the serrated jaws of the vice prior to clamping the regulator so as not to dick up the body.

In lieu of a vice , you MAY be able to: secure 2 ea. pieces of 2X4 to a piece of plywood or something, ( or your workbench), with some screws.
Space them the distance of the flats on the body, to help you hold it.

As for torquing it down afterward.........Use your best judgement.

You would need a big, special socket to do it like when it was assembled,
or a "crowsfoot",( torque adapter), to use on a torque wrench.

75 foot pounds seems like a lot if you think about it, but on threads that big of a diameter, you would approach that torque rather quickly!

Remember, the regulator body is probably cast metal, so don't get crazy on it!

Make a guesstimate of how tight it was upon dis-assembly, and use that as your guide.and leak check it afterward.

You probably already figured this out, but have your regulator screw backed out all the way, ( not removed), for the work to be done.

Good luck

I found rebuild kits for my regulators (Chudnow) pretty cheap at keg connection so I bought 2. I figure since flat rate shipping is almost the same cost as 1 kit, it makes sense to have a spare anyway rather than having to pay shipping all over again if I develop this problem again.

I don't have a vice but dad does and lives about an hr away.