How much pressure can a keg possibly get from secondary fermentation?

[jamesC]

Hi folks, witnessed a one-way keg (not keykeg, its another brand) explosion the other day. Fella was just lifting the keg midway and it exploded, had some cuts on his hand, messy floor but everything else was okay. The crack was vertically down the keg. The beer was a lager beer. The keg was at ambient temp around 80F. It was out of refrigeration perhaps about 4 to 5 hours. Many people were just saying oh its secondary fermentation, beer was not treated well etc etc. Let's first assume the keg structure was okay.

I dont think there's a PRV built into the oneway keg valves, or even steel kegs. I wonder why though.

I'm wondering just how much more the secondary fermentation or whatever can cause the pressure to go?
How do you calculate how many vol of CO2 can be generated from the secondary fermentation?

If its first forced carbonated at the brewery at 38F at 2.7vols, so starting internal pressure of the keg probably at 15PSI? And as the keg temp rise to 80F, while the beer is still holding at 2.7vol, then the internal pressure would increase to 38PSI?

 

[day_trippr]

According to our favorite carbonation table, 2.7 volumes at 38°F would need ~13.5 PSI.

I don't believe raw Sanke kegs have any PRV but I think I read once that they have a stamped coupon pattern that is suppose to let loose before someone gets killed. Could be wrong on that though.

Don't know what to say about the plastic keg in question. Could be a defect failure, could be the beer was too young to keg. And for "how high", if the beer was truly not "done" the sky is the limit

As for the "38 psi" thing, that doesn't sound right but I'm not the guy to answer anyway Maybe @doug293cz could help...

Cheers!