Beer Loss Due to Improperly Tightened DuoTight

[Clint Yeastwood]

Duotight is a blessing to all mankind, but attaching Duotight fittings to flared fittings seems to be a source of endless new lessons.

I put a Duotight gas disconnect on some EVAbarrier, I ran it to a Kegland inline regulator, and then I ran more to a flared thread on a check valve on a CO2 tank. I checked everything with soapy water, and days later, I still found gas coming out at one joint. I had been gassing up the kegs and then shutting the CO2 off to see if the pressure was stable, and it kept dropping, so I didn't lose much gas. I must have tightened it three full turns to make it stop.

Kegland says to tighten these things hand-tight and then go 1/4 turn, if memory serves. Maybe it's half a turn. Anyway, I generally have to to way past that to make the bubbles stop. Am I alone here?

Today I went to sample an ale in the garage keezer. I had a Duotight flow control disconnect on EVAbarrier, connected to a faucet with a flared fitting. It seemed fine yesterday. Today I found over a gallon of beer on the keezer floor. I had to suck it out with a Shop Vac, which nearly ruined the flavor. I kid. It still tasted great.

I had to crank the fitting down far past the point at which it had seemed to seal before.

 

[day_trippr]

I have 49 PTC fittings in use but only three of them are Duotight fittings. They're on primary regulator male flare outputs, so if one fails when I'm not aware it'll empty a 5 pound cylinder. Not the worst thing in the world as I have a 20 pound siphon tank to refill from, but fortunately to date I've had no issues with them - or the 6 DMfit PTCs or the 40 JohnGuest PTCs.

I tighten by hand until it won't tighten further, then wrench until it feels right. That's usually around a 1/4 turn, and honestly I do not recall wrenching much more than that. It was 4 years ago now that I converted the entire cold side of the house to EVABarrier and PTCs so there may have been larger variances, but multiple turns would have raised an alarm.

I actually did blow the back out of one early on (the dreaded "click" was a dead give-away) and resolved to be more careful. Still, the fact that with all those fittings in service since the fall of 2019 I haven't lost an ounce of gas says they can be used successfully...

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

Today I found over a gallon of beer on the keezer floor. I had to suck it out with a Shop Vac, which nearly ruined the flavor. I kid. It still tasted great.

Thanks for that bit of confidence!

I always keep pieces of goat soap on the bottom of the shop vac, as a deodorizer. I'm making a note to first remove them when vacuuming up beer. Those could really ruin the flavor.

 

[Broken Crow]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...mm-monotight-connector-duotight-shank.730515/