Problem with Fast Ferment Valve Leaking

[cekramer]

So last night I went to take the yeast collection ball off my Fast Ferment conical and as soon as I unscrewed and removed the collection ball and connectors from the valve it began to leak pretty fast, I ended up losing about a quarter gallon of beer due to this leak. I ended up racking the beer into a carboy to prevent further leaking and possible contamination but this has never happened to me before. I've had this fermenter for about 9 months now and had no issues with it until last night. Has anyone else had this happen to them? And if so how did you fix it? I don't want to have to buy a new valve but that may be my only option if I can't figure out how to fix it. Thanks in advance.

 

[GreggWithTwoGs]

This exact thing happened to me this past weekend. Unfortunately, I lost a bit more beer than you. I haven't had a chance to disassemble and examine the valve yet to see what may have gone wrong. But, what conclusions did you reach in regard to this issue?

 

[CRZ]

Always make sure the O ring on the bottom is there and seated properly after removing the yeast collection.

Debris can also be blocking the ball preventing it from closing all the way. Do you clean the inside of the union? If you pull the handle off you can use the backside of it to unscrew the bottom. Be extra careful not to damage the O ring with the handle. I take mine apart every 2 brews now to clean.

 

[GreggWithTwoGs]

I'm pretty sure I had the O ring in place, but maybe it slipped out of place a little. I think it may have been due more to something blocking the ball valve from closing all the way. This was one of those brew days where everything was going wrong. The hop filter had come off my RIMS system (Grainfather) during the boil and I had to dump the wort into a kettle to chill and transfer into the Fastferment. As a result, a LOT of trub and hop material made it into the FF....that may very well have been the cause. I'm sure this all could have been avoided had I remembered to RDWHAHB.

 

[augiedoggy]

first thing I did was throw away the plastic valve and replaced it with a stainless one.. my plastic valve cracked before I even got a chance to use it. I also have camlock fittings between the yeastball and valve that I can swap with the kegging hose easily.

 

[Vandulus]

I had the worst luck with leaks using the FastFerment all 4 batches I tried in it. Sold it off and used the money to buy a SS Brew Bucket and life has been good since. There's also also the Catalyst and Fermonster which look like they have much better seals...

 

[757rex]

Sounds like the bottom of the ball valve loosened up when you took the collection ball off. Here is a video showing how to take the ball valve apart.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EBfdHRIRTE[/ame]

 

[Jeff Brush]

first thing I did was throw away the plastic valve and replaced it with a stainless one.. my plastic valve cracked before I even got a chance to use it. I also have camlock fittings between the yeastball and valve that I can swap with the kegging hose easily.

I have two of the 3g Fastferments and have nothing but issues with the valves. How did you convert yours to stainless ones. I think this would help me out a lot.

 

[augiedoggy]

I

I have two of the 3g Fastferments and have nothing but issues with the valves. How did you convert yours to stainless ones. I think this would help me out a lot.

I removed the plastic valves and screwed stainless replacements on? I'm not sure if anything has changed in the design but mine is an older Vvessel it had 3/4" male threads on the bottom.

 

[melsbells]

I

I removed the plastic valves and screwed stainless replacements on? I'm not sure if anything has changed in the design but mine is an older Vvessel it had 3/4" male threads on the bottom.

Any particular recommendation on where to buy the stainless steel valve? I'm looking to replace mine for the 14 gallon and for some reason a preliminary search is returning some pretty expensive results (which may partially be due to the fact that it's a 1.5" valve rather than 3/4", but still)...

 

[augiedoggy]

ebay? thats or bargain fittings is were I get most of my stainless.

 

[spitfire5054]

I'm considering buying the FastFermenter 30l but am reading that there's a serious issue with leeks from lid threads and others has the Manufacturer overcome this problem on current models - BTW who is the Manufacturer I'd like to buzz them on this issue ...joe

 

[drlars]

So last night I went to take the yeast collection ball off my Fast Ferment conical and as soon as I unscrewed and removed the collection ball and connectors from the valve it began to leak pretty fast, I ended up losing about a quarter gallon of beer due to this leak. I ended up racking the beer into a carboy to prevent further leaking and possible contamination but this has never happened to me before. I've had this fermenter for about 9 months now and had no issues with it until last night. Has anyone else had this happen to them? And if so how did you fix it? I don't want to have to buy a new valve but that may be my only option if I can't figure out how to fix it. Thanks in advance.

So not to hijack an old thread, but I just got back into homebrewing after a 10y hiatus. But I wanted to keep it stove-top, and do partial-mash 3gal batches instead of 5 and streamline the process if I could. Was excited about these smaller conicals I was seeing for sale.
First two batches went great, but this last time I did a higher-gravity IPA and the kreusen had leaked out a bit (despite my blowoff setup) and had dripped down the fermenter and onto the valve. I don't know if that was the reason (and yes, I probably should have washed it first), but I tried to harvest the trub, and the valve broke off. Now in all fairness, I was aware of this complaint (cheap plastic valve) when I bought it, and even being aware of this it still happened. I looked at the attachment where it snapped and its about the diameter of a ball-point pen. I seems like this was going to happen sooner or later. Other than that, I thought the setup worked well (e.g. bottling with a line directly from the fermenter sure was nice...)
Anyway, I just bought a Fermzilla on the rationale that its got a metal valve setup. I will report back on my findings.....