Anti Tamper Micromatic Regulator - pulling apart?

[pcqypcqy]

I got beer in my regulator. I know, I know - new to kegs, rookie mistake, will buy a check valve.

Most advice I've read in other posts here suggets pulling apart and cleaning asap. However, it seems that this is a newer version of the Micromatic that has an anti-tamper cover over everything, meaning I can't access anything to pull apart. Is it just a matter of tearing this thing off?

Do I need to? As soon as I did it, I blew all the beer out with a heap of gas, let it warm up, blew it again.

I then opened every valve I could manage and washed with water, then blew it again with the gas. I also then charged an empty keg, and lowered the pressure on the regulator to blow the gas backwards through the regulator and out the same relief hole that the beer came out.

I was thinking of backwashing some sanitiser through it (similar to how I did it with the beer), and then forcing the gas backwards through the regulator again.

Any thoughts (other than buying a check valve)?

 

[doug293cz]

Seems like you've back flushed and cleaned this about as best as you can without disassembling. Not sure using sanitizer would add anything. (edit: I thought on first reading you blew water back thru just like with the beer. You didn't actually say that tho. I think I would force back flush with water, and then blow lots of CO2 to dry it out.) I wouldn't try to take it apart now, just use it and hope for the best. If it does end up malfunctioning, then is the time to force off the no-tamper cover, and do a rebuild. Be sure to add the check valve before it happens again.

Turns out I recently did the same thing to someone else's Micromatic, also installed without a check valve. I had brought a full, pre-pressurized keg down to my LHBS where our club meets. The beer was for a future meeting, and I asked to hook it up in the cooler to continue carbing. The owner took me back to the cooler and showed me the hook up to use. I questioned the black QD on the gas line. Owner said he preferred to carb thru the dip tube as it was faster. I didn't want to get into a long discussion about gas dissolution into liquids, and why it wasn't really much faster, so just went along with it. Well, we forgot to vent the pressure before hooking the QD up to the liquid out post. Hard to believe there was no check valve on the line since it was specifically configured for use on the liquid out. Last I knew the regulator was still working. I guess the moral is don't feel so bad about a mistake that even experienced people who should know better also make.

Brew on

 

[pcqypcqy]

thanks doug293cz

my friend in town who got me into all-grain and cornies told me he's done the same thing, his regulator seems fine. His is the older style micromatic that is user-service, whereas mine makes a great point of being tamper evident, to the point where the cap that covers the adjustment screw only goes on once, if you ever want to adjust it again you have to tear it off (i.e. tamper evident).

 

[Stealthcruiser]

That "bonnet" will come off...........You can see the "drive" lugs down in the cavity where the adjustment screw lives.

I'm guessing, a narrow pair of pliers, with the sides of the pliers, against the side of the "drive" lugs, ( squarely, mind you), and it should spin off.

 

[day_trippr]

Ok, so what the heck is the point of an "anti-tamper" mechanism on a regulator??

Someone at MM totally lost it...

Cheers!

 

[doug293cz]

Ok, so what the heck is the point of an "anti-tamper" mechanism on a regulator??

Someone at MM totally lost it...

Cheers!

Probably intended for commercial installations where the "help" thinks they know more about how best adjust equipment than the people responsible for adjusting the equipment. I learned about this on a summer job where the machine operators couldn't seem to resist tweaking the settings approved by the engineers. I was able to conclusively prove that the operators shouldn't be messing with the settings.

Not an appropriate configuration for homebrewers.

Brew on

 

[passedpawn]

Intuitively, I would say don't go any further with your disassembly. I'm not sure what the internet advice was for, but I've got two regulators (one is a micromatic) that worked fine out of the box.

There's got to be something better to tinker with in your brew works... I know what it's like to want to tinker with something

 

[pcqypcqy]

Hi passedpawn - not just tinkering for the fun of it, it seems there's a genuine concern that the insides will rust out if left unchecked once beer gets in. As this is all brand new, I'd rather not have ruined it on my first keg, even if it takes some months for the ruin-ing to occur.

 

[passedpawn]

Hi passedpawn - not just tinkering for the fun of it, it seems there's a genuine concern that the insides will rust out if left unchecked once beer gets in. As this is all brand new, I'd rather not have ruined it on my first keg, even if it takes some months for the ruin-ing to occur.

Ah, I see. I've never heard concerns of rust in there. I assume beer never gets into my own regulators because of check valves.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Ah, I see. I've never heard concerns of rust in there. I assume beer never gets into my own regulators because of check valves.

No check valve, or so he says..................

 

[pcqypcqy]

To me it seems that if you don't overfill your kegs, and don't force carb, you should never have a problem.

However, I was force carbing at around 50 psi, then rolling the keg around to help the gas and beer mix. I had left the gas connected while doing this, and must have turned down the pressure on the regulator.

High pressure in keg + submerged dip tube + low pressure at regulator + no check valve = beer shooting out the relief valve.

So if you're not as stupid as I was, then you probably haven't had this problem

 

[doug293cz]

Just because we know how we should do things doesn't mean that we always do them right. Mistakes happen, beer happens, etc. Check valves are cheap insurance that help to protect us from our own mistakes. The most robust systems require multiple mistakes to occur before anything bad actually happens.

Brew on

 

[JonW]

Hi passedpawn - not just tinkering for the fun of it, it seems there's a genuine concern that the insides will rust out if left unchecked once beer gets in. As this is all brand new, I'd rather not have ruined it on my first keg, even if it takes some months for the ruin-ing to occur.

Another thought to consider.... I worry that if beer gets pushed back up into the regulator that it may spoil there and grow nasties. You could then be sending these nasties back into each subsequent keg that you connect. I would make sure you thoroughly clean the QD and lines in addition to the regulator.

 

[pcqypcqy]

Another thought to consider.... I worry that if beer gets pushed back up into the regulator that it may spoil there and grow nasties. You could then be sending these nasties back into each subsequent keg that you connect. I would make sure you thoroughly clean the QD and lines in addition to the regulator.

Hi JonW - this is what has me worried. I did get some water back through soon after, but this is not the same as a proper clean/dry/sanitise.

I'll try to have a go in the next few days as suggested previously, getting some pointy nose pliers in there and trying to use the lugs to unscrew the front housing.