Sanke D over pressured

[batsnapper]

This post is to recount a problem I had w/ a sanke keg that I could not find the answer to in this forum or others.

To start, I was given a 15 gal sanke keg and I bought a used BeverageAir dispenser for a "deal". It wound up costing way more, but that is another story. I decided to use the setup for homemade draft root beer that I've been making and kegging in corny's. After much other unrelated obstacles I set it up for an event with CO2 tank, regulator and picnic tap connected to a ball lock on a new krome sanke coupler. I had it on CO2 for a week prior at 20 lbs, room temp w/ sanke coupler and the penny hack (I'll post a pic of that). At the event it was foaming like crazy and I just figured I had over carbed it. Post event I'm trying to get the keg setup in the BevAir. And cannot seem to even bleed the pressure off and blew a line off in the process of hooking it up.

Here are some of the things I learned. Please feel free to correct my misconceptions, comment or laugh.
- Penny hack is something a commercial micro brewer showed me. To carb a sanke keg, put a penny and washer in the nut that goes on the beer out. You can put pressure on it and not have to have beer lines connected. Pic below.
- The relief valve on a sanke coupler bleeds the pressure between the gas source and the keg. It does not bleed pressure off of the keg.
- In order to bleed pressure off of a sanke keg and not dispense all the product; turn off all gas pressure, connect a dispenser line, turn the keg on it's side or upside down and dispense. The keg will have to be far enough over to get the bottom of the keg spear out of the liquid.
- Allow plenty of time before an event to have all of your sh$t working and proper components in place. Test it before hand.
- Possible causes for the excessive foaming and pressure could just be over carbing or may be a faulty regulator. I'll investigate that.

I'm sure there is more, but bleeding the sanke was the big one I was having a problem with.

Happy Brewing,
Allen

 

[wooda2008]

- The relief valve on a sanke coupler bleeds the pressure between the gas source and the keg. It does not bleed pressure off of the keg.

The pressure relief valve is on the "keg side" of the gas check valve in the Sanke tap, so it will vent excess pressure from the keg so long as your co2 in is turned off. It's what it was designed to do.

- In order to bleed pressure off of a sanke keg and not dispense all the product; turn off all gas pressure, connect a dispenser line, turn the keg on it's side or upside down and dispense. The keg will have to be far enough over to get the bottom of the keg spear out of the liquid.

Save your back.
Turn off all gas pressure, pull the pressure relief valve, relieve pressure. If keg is over carbed, shake it a little, listed for the sounds of bubbles to stop, and pull the relief valve again.

 

[batsnapper]

Turn off all gas pressure, pull the pressure relief valve, relieve pressure. If keg is over carbed, shake it a little, listed for the sounds of bubbles to stop, and pull the relief valve again.

When I did this, nothing came out of the relief valve. I know it had pressure on it because I could dispense with the gas off, and I bled it as I described. I assumed and expected it to work as you described, but it has not. The simple test I did was 1. turn off gas, pull relief valve, result = no gas escaping. 2. turn on gas, pull relief valve, result = gas escaping. 3. turn off gas while relief valve was pulled, result = gas bled down until there was no pressure. After doing that, I tried to dispense with gas off and it was blowing foam as fast as it could.

I don't doubt I'm doing something wrong, but I was very systematic about it because I was surprised by the behavior. Good news is after bleeding the pressure, I now have it hooked up and dispensing properly from the kegerator.

Thanks,
Allen

 

[batsnapper]

Oh, and why on a home brew forum do the words sanke, kegerator, and carbing show as misspelled?