CO2 regulator search

Spunding doesn't involve a regulator (except for the spunding valve). I'm curious as to what you mean by spunding.

I don't have any experience with Kegco. Taprite makes good stuff. MicroMatic does also. But lately I've been happier with my Taprite regulators than Micromatic.

 

I have a couple regulators with a (supposed) manual safety pull (non-Taprite though), and have two observations about the feature. First, I don't know why I'd ever need to pull one. Second, I did try to pull one just to see how it works, and it was incredibly difficult.

IRT the two regulators you linked, the more expensive one's LPG goes up to 60 PSI (not just 30). I need pressures higher than 30 PSI at times. Also, IMO the big, knurled knob is more user friendly than the T-knob.

Regarding the usefulness of manual safety pulls, I would defer to @billandsuz.

 

Those are both great regulators. You have choices but there isn't too much to over think here. They are really very similar regulator bodies.

A PRV with a pull pin is handy when you need to adjust the pressure on a system and not go to the individual coupler*.

Both are there to prevent you blowing up your system. If you have a 60 psi regulator, you better be sure everything is rated above 60 psi from that regulator to the keg or a secondary regulator. The coupler at the keg has a 65 psi blow off because you don't want to blow up a steel keg.

Note you can swap out a high psi gauge for a lower one but not the other way. The spring and the regulator body are designed to work as built. So if you attempt to retro fit a 60 psi regulator with a 100 psi spring and gauge 1, the PRV will blow at 61 psi and 2 the bonnet my be plastic and not designed for the added pressure. and 3, if you have a 30 psi spring it wont go past 30 psi in any event.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

*So for example I can decouple a keg or turn the quarter turn valve at the regulator then dial the pressure down, then pull the PRV, then slowly crank the regulator until it creeps up to the desired pressure. Then when I re-introduce gas to the keg the regulator is set appropriately regardless of the kegs actual pressure. This way I know I have not overshot the determined set psi. If the keg has been over pressured, which is exactly what the staff does when they think the beer is foamy or maybe not carbed enough, it is very difficult to determine where the system pressure is at and make the adjustment. Remember that the regulator is one-way. It let's gas out but it will not put it back into the CO2 tank. You can only lower the pressure by releasing a PRV.

 

Both are very good. I am almost certain the Kegco brand is a MicroMatic Professional rebranded as Kegco. MM has 2 grades, both are good but the Pro model is quite a bit more expensive and there is nothing wrong with the regular mode. MM is also not very easy to deal with at times.

Cost on these is very competitive. Wholesale price for 1 dual gauge Taprite is $45 plus shipping. The Economy Taprite (with the set screw, no plastic knob) is $42 each, plus shipping. If you are paying close to that you're doing good.

Taprite is by far and away the most popular regulator in my area and I believe our supplier sells many more Taprite in all 50 than any other. They are inexpensive. Easy to rebuild. Very reliable. Not many parts. Taprite is what we always install, not least because we don't have to stock a hundred different parts to maintain them. One rebuild kit works for all Taprites too.

Some good brands include
Economy
Cornelius
Norgren

If it's not one of the brands mentioned here, keep looking.

Sometimes you see a Williams or AIH or some other national brew supply market a regulator made for homebrewing but it is going to be made by one of these companies with some meaningless feature. A regulator does one thing and only one thing. It should be metal but that's it as far as things to look for.

One thing you should consider buying is a gas distributor with 2 or 3 outlets. Once you have CO2 gas available in your brewery you'll find yourself using it a lot.

Cheers.

 

The quarter turn valve wont do anything as far as PRV.

The PRV should maybe be called the Emergency Release Valve. It's not supposed to be used for it's designed purpose, it's only used if something is going wrong. Like the regulator body is damaged and the 800 psi tank is charging your keg. Watch out. The PRV prevent that from happening.

I know PRV's are available for sale but my company never once bought one much less installed one. It's a bad idea. And of the maybe half dozen vendor catalogs we have (yeah, it's old school in this business. Lot's of paper catalogs) not one of them has a PRV for sale that I can recall.

You can install the Wye on your new regulator however. It's a pita to remove but it's doable.
Cheers.

 

You probably know this, but the high pressure part of the "dual gauge" setup is not that useful. It looks more impressive, but mostly just to wow the unwashed masses. My last reg I went "single" gauge and have no regrets. For quantity you'll have the tare weight of tank . . . just weigh with reg/hose attached and you'll have tare weight w/reg-setup. That's all you need to measure quantity.

I found the markings faded on the Taprite gauges when left outside (sunlight) to the point they were hard to read. If you have eagle eyes and/or always keep it away from Mr. Sol it should be no problem. I ended up replacing my low pressure gauges with a larger font gauge (search "brewing for the infirm"). Have never used the "safety pull" feature.

Decide if you want "barbs" or "mfl/swivel nuts" . . . either works, but you probably don't want to mix/match. Once kegging you'll have many more uses of CO2, I use lots of whips/qd's for all sorts of tasks. Finally, once you upgrade to 20 lb tank it becomes much cheaper.

 

Swivel nuts make life a lot easier.

 

Naw, that's a nipple . . . a double male npt made to connect to female npt orifices. You want this:

One end is 1/4" male npt, the other end the "male flare" part. I've never converted a shutoff valve barb to mfl but it should work. If you're buying new shutoff valves there is no difference in price (just have to buy the swivel nuts/barbs separately). Oh yeah, you wanna go brass to brass or ss to ss . . . which is the way they'll come if you order a complete new shutoff valve. You'll need nylon flare washers ( 'bout 25¢).


Some suppliers will custom assemble any combination of valves/wyes/nipples/whatnot if you ask them nicely, although it's not a terrible burden to do it yourself.

Just took a look at my regs and both have barbs/mfl mix-matched . . . for explanation see "infirm" comment in my first post.

 

That is a Corney keg liquid connector with a swivel nut and barb. The barb can be removed.
Black = Beer


That is a Corney keg gas disconnect with a barb. No nut.

You need 1 of each for a corney keg to work. And you'll be getting more kegs, and needing more of each too.

Both need the right barb size for your tube ID, if gas or beer. Gas line from a regulator will need a 5/16" line ID because that's what your regulator has on it. So your gas at the keg connection should also be 5/16". While liquid will be 1/4" barb, to fit the 3/16" poly choker line. Of course.

Why you ask don't they just make these the right way to begin with? Soda you see. Cornelius kegs were made for Pepsi Co and not for us homebrewers. Then Charlie Papazian and his friends around '77, '80 discovered they work great for homebrewers. Then Pepsi and all the soda bottlers started to go to bag in a box syrups (B-I-B) in the '90s and there were a million of them laying around. Then homebrewing became very popular and there weren't many cheap used ones around anymore, which means you have to buy a new one which is now made almost exclusively for homebrewing. Because I have been homebrewing long enough to have picked up my kegs when they were beginning to disappear. And then there is Coca Cola kegs (pin lock) which are a Platypus but because Coke is so large these kegs are around, though oddly not nearly as popular with homebrewers as the Cornelius style. It could be because Corney is not unique to Pepsi and was used by many soda bottlers while pin lock is exclusive Coke design, and requires exclusive Coke materials.

Got this far? Good.

Now, your regulator? Also not made for homebrewers. Made for carbonated beverage systems, aka Soda. Made for commercial draft beer systems. But not really made for homebrewing.

So, adapt we must.
And a swivel nut offers a bit more adaptability.

Class is dismissed.

 

I think a big reason pin locks aren't as popular is the lack of a manually pull-able PRV in the lid for bleeding purposes.

 

@riptorn you might find this useful also:
-> A Bottler's Guide to Kegging <-

 

This is more likely a bad o-ring. CO2 cylinders are like scuba tanks . . . the master valve has an o-ring that compresses when the valve is screwed into the body of the cylinder. You are not compressing the threads (like npt), rather compressing an o-ring between the lip of valve and neck of cylinder. This seals the gas in. Cost of a new o-ring is less than a buck. There is a recommended torque setting but I wouldn't get too worked up about that if a torque wrench is not laying around. You have nothing to lose if valve stem is currently leaking. Surprised a gas tech didn't tell you this.
https://www.catalinacylinders.com/faqs/valving-of-co2-cylinders/

Only if the threads are truly buggered up will you have to replace the valve. Typically a new CGA320 valve can be found for under 20 bucks.

That said, I would only use a 2.5 lb tank if I were putting a keezer in a doll house. BTW, check out Home Bar Forum . . . we talk like this all the time over there.

 

No doubt. Although one can -- and I have done this -- purchase a lid with the PRV and use it on pin-lock kegs.

A related issue. For some, keg dimensions can be an consideration. Ball lock kegs are taller (and narrower) than pin lock. I don't believe ball lock would fit in my beer fridge due to their height.