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Author Topic: Help contaminated my Tank  (Read 3615 times)

Offline robertschenck

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Help contaminated my Tank
« on: January 05, 2010, 08:28:05 pm »
My tank was hooked up to 2 kegs. One had a leak, drained the co2 tank and beer flowed from the one tank holding pressure into the CO2 tank. Does anyone know how to clean and sanitize the tank or is it screwed? :'(

Offline beerocd

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2010, 08:45:22 pm »
My tank was hooked up to 2 kegs. One had a leak, drained the co2 tank and beer flowed from the one tank holding pressure into the CO2 tank.

I don't understand how that could happen. The co2 tank can't push out more than equal pressure amongst all tanks, can it? Did the temps - and therefore the pressure change? Something else left out of the scenario above? I did one time naturally carbonate a keg, hook it up and have beer shooting out my regulator because keg pressure was higher than co2 pressure. But it didn't get into the co2 tank.
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Offline robertschenck

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2010, 08:48:19 pm »
Dont know how but there is beer inside my co2 tank :'(

Offline a10t2

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2010, 12:04:38 am »
No offense, but how do you know?
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Offline Jeff Renner

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2010, 12:46:45 pm »
I'm with the rest.  Hard to imagine this happening.  Are you sure it's not liquid CO2 in there?

To check, take off the gauges, turn it upside down, and gently open the valve a crack into a white towel.  If it's beer, the towel will catch it and you can see or smell it.

If it really is beer, all is not lost.  You can drain all the pressure and remove the valve and clean it out, then dry it.  Or take it to the place that fills them.  They could do it.

Regardless, if you got beer into the gauges and/or regulator, you have to clean them and dry them or they won't work.

For the future, it's worthwhile to install one-way check valves.

Jeff
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Offline robertschenck

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2010, 09:16:15 pm »
open the valve all the way turned the tank upside down and beer came out. You say I can remove the valve with out screwing the tank up? Thanks for the advice.

Offline tony

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2010, 04:57:22 am »
You say I can remove the valve with out screwing the tank up? Thanks for the advice.

I certainly wouldn't recommend you doing that yourself unless you have the proper training.
Also keep in mind that if you do do this, you'll need to have the tank purged before refilling.

Offline BrewQwest

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Re: Help contaminated my Tank
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2010, 05:17:56 am »
if indeed you end up taking the valve off, at least shine a light into the tank and visually inspect the interior of  your tank.  Notate anything unusual.  If you ever need to remove the valve again in the future, do the same and compare what you see currently with any previous ones.  In the SCUBA world, this is called a 'visual' inspection....
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