PaulCa
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- Feb 28, 2012
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Has anyone had trouble with their regulator freezing when cleaning, purging and burping their keg?
I use an FE, but upside down, the FE is in the fridge so should be about 800psi. Basically what happens is when I bring the keg up to sealing pressure 10-15psi to pump the sterilizer out through the lines the regulator forms a layer of ice. I ran warm water over it to warm it up before purging the keg, filling it and then bumping the pressure up to 30psi.
It was then that things started to go very wrong. The regulator refroze, but the pressure gauge started flicking from 20Psi to 40PSi and then 50PSI. I pulled the gas line off and stepped back in fear the reg was about to fail. The gauge was twitching and jumping from 30PSI to 50 or 60PSI and the reg and cylinder where making a "tinking" noise like your car makes when cooling.
I tried to release the pressure from the gas line by pushing the poppet with the handle of a small screwdriver and the poppet unseated causing the CO2 to flow freely into the room. The bottle trigger was off, but the CO2 took ages to empty the reg. By that time the reg was completely frozen, but the needle had thankfully dropped to zero.
Having done a bit of googling, this isn't meant to happen unless the cylinder is (a) warm or (b) the output PSI is above 60psi. The ice over is apparently just the gas expansion in the reg sucking in heat. But the sticking and jumping of the guage is potentially CO2 snow and ice (dry ice) sticking the diaphram. Lots of welding sites recommend using a heating pad wrapped around the regulator.
Anyone else had this? Should I be worried the regulator diaphram will freeze, crack and fail resulting in 1000PSI gas blowing the line off and causing chaos and or injury? Am I being paranoid? Should I just warm the reg at each stage before continuing?
Oh, one thing that might not help is that I take the CO2 bottle out of the fridge to change the keg (clean, purge, burp etc.). I had a similar problem with the proper pub bottle, but this time it was a lot more severe. Could the change in temp of the reg cause this to be worse, coming from 4*C to 24*C environment?
Paul
I use an FE, but upside down, the FE is in the fridge so should be about 800psi. Basically what happens is when I bring the keg up to sealing pressure 10-15psi to pump the sterilizer out through the lines the regulator forms a layer of ice. I ran warm water over it to warm it up before purging the keg, filling it and then bumping the pressure up to 30psi.
It was then that things started to go very wrong. The regulator refroze, but the pressure gauge started flicking from 20Psi to 40PSi and then 50PSI. I pulled the gas line off and stepped back in fear the reg was about to fail. The gauge was twitching and jumping from 30PSI to 50 or 60PSI and the reg and cylinder where making a "tinking" noise like your car makes when cooling.
I tried to release the pressure from the gas line by pushing the poppet with the handle of a small screwdriver and the poppet unseated causing the CO2 to flow freely into the room. The bottle trigger was off, but the CO2 took ages to empty the reg. By that time the reg was completely frozen, but the needle had thankfully dropped to zero.
Having done a bit of googling, this isn't meant to happen unless the cylinder is (a) warm or (b) the output PSI is above 60psi. The ice over is apparently just the gas expansion in the reg sucking in heat. But the sticking and jumping of the guage is potentially CO2 snow and ice (dry ice) sticking the diaphram. Lots of welding sites recommend using a heating pad wrapped around the regulator.
Anyone else had this? Should I be worried the regulator diaphram will freeze, crack and fail resulting in 1000PSI gas blowing the line off and causing chaos and or injury? Am I being paranoid? Should I just warm the reg at each stage before continuing?
Oh, one thing that might not help is that I take the CO2 bottle out of the fridge to change the keg (clean, purge, burp etc.). I had a similar problem with the proper pub bottle, but this time it was a lot more severe. Could the change in temp of the reg cause this to be worse, coming from 4*C to 24*C environment?
Paul
