Ball lock liquid disconnect reliability

[September]

How often do ball lock liquid disconnects crap out? Friday night was fine for dispensing beer but last night nothing. Tried reseating about 50 million times but no luck. Tried switching between kegs and everything. To verify pressure, I even took an allen wrench to depress the out valve and, well, got sprayed in the eyes which kind of burned a little oops It has to be the ball lock but there's not much to it. I unscrewed it and took it apart and nothing but a spring and plastic pin :shrug: Ordered a new one... Gas line works fine.

 

[September]

Found out what happened. I replaced the ball-lock disconnect and still no luck (so now I have a spare which isn't all bad ). I thought about it, being puzzled, literally no experience having brewed about 4 batches so far and the only explanation I could think of was that the dip tube must be clogged. Had to be. But on 2 kegs occuring at exactly the same time? Pretty unusual. But true it turns out. I had one empty clogged keg that used to be 1/4 full that I just depressurized and poured into glasses. Took that and unscrewed the out valve and...voila...caked with crap. Cleaned that, depressurized the other keg and puured that into the cleaned keg. Popped the out valve off of the other keg and it was clogged the same way. Just held it under the faucet and gave it a quick tap on the end with a finger and A LOT of garbage came out. It was flowing fine the night before, wow. Anyway, it must have been the double hopping of the IPA I had just brewed that really increased the number of big particles in the beer. My racking procedure was also flawed since all I had for my 6.5 Big Bubbler was a small auto-siphon which churned it up a bit. I have a large auto-siphon now, though, which should prevent similar dilemmas. All set now. Quite a learning experience. Oatmeal stout boil tomorrow!

 

[bknifefight]

I rubberband a sanitized paint strainer bag to the end of the tube I am siphoning into the keg with. It will catch a lot of the hop material and prevent clogging.

 

[September]

I rubberband a sanitized paint strainer bag to the end of the tube I am siphoning into the keg with. It will catch a lot of the hop material and prevent clogging.

Ah, good idea. Filter it. These forums are great for mentoring these tricks to us noobs Thanks!

 

[hezagenius]

I also filter when I rack to a keg. Works great. I put the bag on the tube going into the keg. I tried it once on the racking cane end and it kept getting sucked into the siphon. That was a hassle.

For my next batch, I purchased a stainless steel dry hopping tube. I'm going to put this into the fermentor and put the racking cane inside it and see if that helps with preventing stuff from getting into the keg.

 

[jwelch1103]

I had this problem the first time I dry hopped and some escaped. I use pin locks and am not sure if this would work with ball locks but I swapped the posts. With the liquid post now on the gas in and vice versa I turned the keg sideways and was able to draft beer until it was empty.

 

[September]

Good ideas, guys.

 

[zachattack]

You poured from one keg to the other? Better drink it fast before it tastes like cardboard!

 

[IslandLizard]

You can depressurize a keg and remove the posts for servicing, even dip tubes, without much problem. The amount of air that gets in is very small. If you let CO2 stream very slowly from the gas post while working on the liquid one, you'll keep all air out.

No need to purge afterwards, just repressurize.

 

[September]

You poured from one keg to the other? Better drink it fast before it tastes like cardboard!

Yeah, I didn't really have much choice, though. Mistakes just compound each other from the start. I suppose I could have used the mini-siphon but I was already running late into movie time It still tastes great, though, and they are mini-kegs so they go relatively quickly. I'm sure I'll be much more discriminating (and skilled) with more experience and time.

 

[September]

You can depressurize a keg and remove the posts for servicing, even dip tubes, without much problem. The amount of air that gets in is very small. If you let CO2 stream very slowly from the gas post while working on the liquid one, you'll keep all air out.

No need to purge afterwards, just repressurize.

Good tip. Bad oxygen! Well, you're ok for breathing, I guess...