This is a warning to all cornelius keggers who have the flare type disconnects on their ball/pin locks!

The night before leaving for work a couple week ago, I prepped 5 gallons of Dusseldorf Altbier for carbonation. I noticed the teflon on the flare fitting was a bit thin, but I didn't bother putting any more on it. I hooked everything up to the keg, and tightened the threaded barb fitting with channel locks, as usual. After it was all done, I pressured up the keg with gas and checked for leaks. I didn't notice any leaks, so I left it alone. The next morning, just before leaving for work, I gave the keg another check. Still everything looked good.
I got home a couple days ago and nearly all 5 gallons of the beer had slowly leaked out from the flare fitting, into my rolling kegerator! It looks like the weight of the hose on the barbed fitting slowly loosened the barb nut just a bit. Then beer began leaking past the threads,very slowly, because there just wasn't quite enough teflon on them.
What's really terrible is, there was enough beer left in the keg for my wife and I to taste. It's quite possibly the best beer I've made yet! ACH!

Flare fittings are easy to use, and I still love em. I think I'll make sure to put a fresh layer of teflon tape on them EVERY TIME I use them from now on, though. A good layer of teflon tape would certainly have prevented this disaster from happening. So, learn from my mistake and go tape up those fittings!

Cheers,
Dave

Tags: beer brewing disasters, teflon tape, threaded barb, channel locks, flare fittings

If its a flare fitting shoudnt a rubber washer be the seal?
I just looked at one and they come with angled rubber pieces in them to seal against the flare portion. I am sure the teflon would work but the rubber seal is way better.

Thats a bummer, i always worry about stuff like that. I will give your fallen brew a toast on my next kegerator visit!!

Hey jeepguy,

Inside my fittings is an angled bit of plastic, not rubber. That's why I need the teflon. Do you sell the rubber gaskets? They would certainly be much better!

Thanks!

Cheers,
Dave