Redhook Employee Dies After Keg Explodes

[michaeltrego]

Very sad news at our local brewery. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends and Redhook community.

http://www.wmur.com/news/30946163/detail.html

 

[rhamilton]

OMG -- horrible news.....

What PSI do Sanke kegs blow?

 

[paulmac]

I think it would have to be a pretty significant pressure. I have a feeling this is going to come down to some sort of catastrophic failure due to unnoticed damage to the keg. I can't see any reason for them to put as much pressure as I would expect you would need to explode a keg.

 

[Gregscsu]

OMG -- horrible news.....

What PSI do Sanke kegs blow?

Standard Sanke Kegs are typically rated to 60 PSI max working pressure.

Cornelious kegs are typically rated to 130 PSI max working pressure.



I assume that the keg was damaged in some way or the pressurizing system failed to cut out at the specified PSI, which lead to the keg failure.

 

[HawksBrewer]

That is terrible news, prayers will be said for the employee and their family.

 

[bk0]

I heard a story as a kid of a guy who died by throwing an old sanke keg on a bonfire. Thing blew up and the shrapnel killed him.

 

[ScootersAle]

Scary.

 

[Homercidal]

Ever throw a can of beer in the bonfire? I've heard they are pretty impressive. I can't imagine what a whole keg would go off like...

 

[barneygumble]

That is tragic.

Kegs are pressure vessels and as such are usually rated to withstand 5X max safe pressure before rupturing. Hence I doubt it was due to excess pressure. Typical air systems run around 110psi. It had to either be a fault in construction or damage to the inner pressure vessel wall. My guess is it was a faulty new keg with poor welds.

 

[bueschen]

terribly sad news. Man, rough one that.

 

[cyclogenesis]

Yikes... I would have thought, like many pressure containers, they would have had a engineered weak spot which would allow a controlled blow out rather than an explosion...

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I've worked with pressurizing keg filling/cleaning equipment and they are serious machines. I can see how a minor malfunction or defect in the keg could make this happen.

My heart goes out to the man and his family. My heart also goes out to Redhook.... it must be awful to have that over your head. I'm hoping OSHA determines it was indeed a freak accident and not negligence. I also hope all parties deal with this tragedy with tact and dignity in order to honor the man properly.

 

[Jayhem]

Terrible.

 

[ChrisKennedy]

Kegs are supposed to have a fail point, usually on the bottom, that will give before any sort of huge, dangerous explosion happens. This is terrible news, and I hope Redhook makes public what went wrong so that all the breweries out there can make sure this horrible event can't happen to them.

 

[Bamsdealer]

Very sad news. A painful reminder to be careful when brewing. Propane, fire, hot wort, glass carboys, heavy equipment, pressure, etc are all real and potential hazards.

 

[JRems]

I wonder if the spear came flying out, it was reported as face and head trauma. Maybe after it was pressurized and the tap removed the spear shot out when he was leaning over the keg. That seems most probable to me

 

[jd3]

That is tragic.

Kegs are pressure vessels and as such are usually rated to withstand 5X max safe pressure before rupturing. Hence I doubt it was due to excess pressure. Typical air systems run around 110psi. It had to either be a fault in construction or damage to the inner pressure vessel wall. My guess is it was a faulty new keg with poor welds.

Stories say it was cleaning beer out, so I would guess it wasn't new.

 

[zachattack]

I also hope all parties deal with this tragedy with tact and dignity in order to honor the man properly.

Well said.

 

[ScottSingleton]

The news reportings coming out today are saying that the keg that failed was a plastic keg, not owned by Red Hook. I'm guessing they get the ocassional mis-packed used keg that comes in.

The tragic news includes the fact that he leaves behind a pregnant wife. They've setup a fund for the family here:

http://www.jvwoodfuneralhome.com/fh..._id=1464439&fh_id=11813#.T5iDWewMiMW.facebook

 

[thatjonguy]

The news reportings coming out today are saying that the keg that failed was a plastic keg, not owned by Red Hook.

I have always been concerned about plastic kegs for this reason.

 

[vonZwicky]

Kegs are supposed to have a fail point, usually on the bottom, that will give before any sort of huge, dangerous explosion happens. This is terrible news, and I hope Redhook makes public what went wrong so that all the breweries out there can make sure this horrible event can't happen to them.

I work at a local brewery and occasionally have to do the same kind of work this young man was doing. I'll be following this story for a while, because I want to know the exact circumstances behind it, to help protect my coworkers and myself from any similar event.

I've never read or seen evidence that sankey kegs have safety blow out points, but I could be wrong. The few kegs i've seen that had been blown out by internal pressure were ruptured on top. In one case the rip in the steel was not even along the weld. This is the first case I've seen of an American brewery worker being killed in this fashion. Now that OSHA is involved, I wouldn't doubt if we see some kind of poppet added into future keg designs. A change I would welcome.

All that said, and this is NOT to claim that stainless is exempt from causing this type of accident, I see that the offending keg was plastic. This jibes a little better with the reports that the keg broke into two parts, which I had a difficult time visualizing with a stainless keg.

http://www.wmur.com/r/30960036/detail.html

My prayers are with the family and loved ones who have been left behind. And with my fellow brewers and all touched by this at Red Hook.

 

[sylvan]

Redhook statement:

http://beerstreetjournal.com/redhook-statement-following-worker-fatality/

 

[GaryJohn]

Redhook statement:

http://beerstreetjournal.com/redhook-statement-following-worker-fatality/

Looks like it was a plastic keg, and it wasn't one of theirs.
I've never heard of something like this happening before.

 

[vonZwicky]

Looks like it was a plastic keg, and it wasn't one of theirs.
I've never heard of something like this happening before.

It is indeed a very rare event, but it has happened. I did some digging a while back and was only able to find a couple of stories about keg related deaths. One was of a pub worker in the UK who had a keg explode in his face while unloading a truck. The other happened to a guy who brought his keg to the beach (1980's California IIRC). A fellow brewer and long time New Orleans native recalls a case in the 1970's. A man was killed by a keg on the Mardi Gras parade route. He rigged a way to connect a CO2 bottle to the keg without a regulator. Yikes!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Looks like it was a plastic keg, and it wasn't one of theirs.

Yeah, I worked at a regional brewery for a summer and whenever we got the plastic kegs we would just put them in a stack until we had enough to palate and get the hell out of our warehouse.

 

[vonZwicky]

Yeah, I worked at a regional brewery for a summer and whenever we got the plastic kegs we would just put them in a stack until we had enough to palate and get the hell out of our warehouse.

That's been a big problem for breweries of any size. They all have a stack of other people's kegs, and there's as yet no cost effective way to sort and return them all to their rightful owners.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Keg ownership is weird.... it's like Goblin made weapons.

He who hast commissionedeth the forging of a kegge,
Beist the rightful owner of said kegge.
Once the wielder hast drained the kegge of the containing life liquid,
The ownership of said kegge returneth to that of the forger.

 

[vonZwicky]

Keg ownership is weird.... it's like Goblin made weapons.

He who hast commissionedeth the forging of a kegge,
Beist the rightful owner of said kegge.
Once the wielder hast drained the kegge of the containing life liquid,
The ownership of said kegge returneth to that of the forger.

This is the greatest thing I've read all day. :rockin:

 

[Getzinator]

Wow, what shockingly bad news. My thoughts are with your community.

 

[unclephilly]

Sad news. I really didn't think that those kegs had that much pressure to go off like that.

 

[TyTanium]

Here's some info on Sankey kegs & pressure over at probrewer:
http://www.probrewer.com/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=80018&postcount=18

 

[SkinnyShamrock]

The news reportings coming out today are saying that the keg that failed was a plastic keg, not owned by Red Hook. I'm guessing they get the ocassional mis-packed used keg that comes in.

We regularly get our kegs back at Troegs with "Lite" and a batch code printed on them, or "Banquet" and a batch code, etc etc. The big breweries don't give two hoots about whose keg it is, they just fill it anyway. All the big breweries do this. This poor guy paid the price.

I can see this policy changing, however.

Getting someone else's kegs is a pain. They take up space and the distributor often doesn't want to waste trailer space getting them back to their proper owners.