Weird check valve issue...

[JJinMD]

So I had brewed an 11 gallon batch on Saturday, hooked up three cornies to a gas out post on the CF10 in order to purge them. On the last keg, I put a gas ball lock fitting with the built-in check valve to prevent any suck back from the attached tube going into beaker of starsan (in case it got cold before fermentation started). Well, yesterday, it must have gotten cold, because it sucked back about a quart of starsan. Well, I thought that was odd since I had the check valve on, but guessed maybe it had just failed in that manner and added more starsan to the beaker. Then today I am checking in on it and decided to shake the kegs to see how much starsan is in each one. In doing so, I must have nudged one of the fittings, because I then heard some gas noises. So I checked the first keg attached to the fermenter and it was full of pressure, as were them all. After fiddling around with it, I realized the check valve ball lock fitting on the last keg was not letting any of the gas flow through it. After swapping that one out, everything is doing great, bubbling away. In fact, it was so much gas I was worried that I had put stress on the CF, but that seems fine, and the gas build up was at least distributed between 4 gallons of head space, and 15 gallons worth of cornies.

Anyone else have issues with those check valve ball lock fittings? (This was a Kegland brand, not a CM Becker)

 

[3 Dawg Night]

So, stupid question (my specialty), but are you sure you didn't install the check valve backward?

Not trying to insult your intelligence, it's just that 90% of the time, it's something simple like that (for me, anyway).

 

[Craiginthecorn]

I'm not certain that I'm understanding. Were any of your kegs filled with StarSan? Or were you just pushing CO2 into empty daisy chained kegs, with StarSan in a beaker at the end? I'm assuming the latter.

The check valve in gas disconnect is intended to prevent backflow. In other words, let gas in, but prevent beer from flowing out of the keg through the gas post and into your distribution manifold or regulator. If I'm understanding the situation correctly, you wanted the opposite direction of flow, allowing for out, but not in. That's where a little spunding valve is perfect. And with a spunding valve, there's no need for a tube in a container of StarSan.

 

[JJinMD]

Ha ha, yes, that is exactly it. For some reason I completely forgot that with the setup of daisy chained keg purging I was basically going the "wrong" direction through the cornies such that the ball lock's integrated check valve was also going out instead of in through the gas post. The ball lock worked exactly as it should. FWIW, I did end up putting a spunding valve in there after it slowed down some so I can carb for free! I put the output of the spunding valve in the daisy chain of kegs to keep purging and kept the final keg gas "out" connection routed into the container of StarSan (but now with a standard ball lock fitting).

Occam's Razor for the win! Thanks for the reality check. Where is my brain sometimes....