Tassalini BFV and parts soaking

[velez03]

Anyone out there using Tassalini butterfly valves having issues with the red silicone valve seats wearing prematurely? These are the only valves I have in my brewery and the 'permanent' valves on the tanks show exactly no wear while the ones in my parts bucket are needing replacement almost every other month, sometimes sooner. I have used these valves in the past without this problem and have always soaked brewery parts in Iodophor. I suspect that its the Iodophor and if that is the case, any suggestions for alternatives to parts soaking?

Cheers
Pete

[samhuff]

Is this the part wearing?
http://i.b5z.net/i/u/2008708/i/val2.jpg

The standard is silicone, should be okay, maybe the concentrations are too high? I'm not a chemist, so I am guessing here.

[velez03]

yep....thats it (the orange one). I thought the concentration was too high too. Even after realizing that I was using the low end of the recommended concentration I cut it back even more....still no luck.

[kugeman]

At my first brewing job we purposely did not soak the butterfly valves (tassalini or others) in Iodophor. The brewer there told me that it was "bad for the seals". I think that was just based on his personal experience. Ever since I've kept a seperate parts bucket for my b-fly valves. I use StarSan from five star for those valves and I have never had a problem.

[DieselDynamo]

I've used space industries FSD-34 for the parts bucket in the past but it has a bad reaction with certain plastics so I switched to PAA. From what I understand it maintains its sanitary ability far longer than iodophore and therefor does not need replacement as often. On a side note can any of you give me tips for replacing the seats on the Tassalini valves? I've ruined two seats trying a variety of methods and want to get it right before proceeding. Thanks for any help.

[william.heinric]

Get those tough little bastards hot, and use an allen wrench to leverage it into place (I run the wrench so that I can get a finger on both side, then pull on that while I push the butterfly post, and then it will slip on). That's been my deal to for replacing them, and I've replaced more than a few.

As to wearing, I've noticed similar wear patterns on tanks as compared to valves in circulation throughout the brewery, and the ones without permanent homes do wear more. However, ones in the brewhouse wear more as well, so perhaps it is less the chemical load, and more the amount of shearing; i.e. the bottom tank valves in a practical sense only draw with negative pressure and are mostly full during transfer and CIP. The ones on the other side of the pump are dealing with shear and positive pressure, so that in addition to the chemical and heat load are maybe increasing wear.

The part about wear patterns is just a guess. Getting your seats really hot does in fact help jockey them into place.

Cheers,
Bill

[BrewinLou]

I bought some replacements not long ago for some Tassalini valves that had not had their seat replaced in 5-7 years or constant use. The new ones were the red silicone. First thing that happened was one ripped in the first week from a factory mold defect (air pocket formed). So I examined all the seats and found 2 more that had a soft bubble spot in the same place.

I sent them all back and traded them out for EPDM seats. Have not had one problem soaking them since.