# Stuck Bottling Valve



## Akademee (Apr 5, 2020)

Could you use a food grade lubricant like a few drops of vegetable oil to grease it up after it has been cleaned really well?


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## Jack Grimshaw (Feb 10, 2001)

Maxant No Drip Valve Heater | Rossman Apiaries, LLC



Unfortunately it's listed as out of stock.

When I was young I made small batches(5gal) of ice cream for a restaurant.The outlet valve had a series of "O" rings and had to be disassembled and cleaned after every batch.The procedure for reassembly was to lightly lubricate the "O" rings with food grade grease ( we used Vaseline back then).You could always tell when someone skipped that step as the valve would freeze up.Some how the light coating of grease kept the ice cream mix from adhering to side walls of the valve.

I have never used your particular valve.Can it be disassembled and does it have O rings?
You questions brought back fond memories of 50 yrs ago.Anything that wouldn't fit in the can was given to the employees.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

I make sure the last thing I fill is a 5 lb jar, hot water on a cloth, pull the handle down to fill the bottle, the part that sticks up you wipe down with the hot water. You do need some hand, eye, leg coordination as I have the 5 lb sitting on my legs to free up the one hand. but I do like the heater from the above post.


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## Ambrose (May 9, 2019)

Jack, 
I have the following schematic: https://www.maxantindustries.com/pdfs/SSNDV_Instruction.pdf

There do appear to be two O rings as part of the assembly. I have thought that I would disassemble the valve and clean everything really well when the tank is empty, but there's probably still 10 gallons of honey in there and at my current rate of bottling, I won't empty it out for a while. I could drain it into buckets I suppose, but would prefer to avoid the additional transfers, so I might just suffer through until the spring. 

Wildbranch, I haven't tried wiping the plunger at the top of the valve. Typically I make sure to wipe the bottom of the valve when I'm done filling, so I already have the wet rag on hand. I have a shelf beneath the tank to hold my jars, so I'm already set up to use both hands. I'll have to give it a try.


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## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Heat lamp? Those valves are really easy to take apart, completely clean and lubricate. You will be much happier with how they work. The heater mentioned above works okay, but if you are not running warm honey through the valve often enough, there are just too many places for crystallized honey to form. The first time I took one apart, I was surprised at how hard the honey had become inside the valve. It took a good bit of soaking in hot/warm water.


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## Ambrose (May 9, 2019)

I have a tube of food grade grease that I used for a Kitchenaid rebuild. I imagine that would work inside the valve as well, but if the honey comes into contact with the rings or whatever else needs lubricating, should I be concerned about the grease mixing into/affecting the honey at all?


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

We have a ball valve before the bottling valve.We close the ball valve and drain the bottling valve.






Ambrose said:


> I have a Maxant bottling tank with the "no drip" valve option. The setup works great except for one thing - after not having pulled honey for a couple of weeks, the valve gets stuck, presumably with crystallized honey, and becomes nearly impossible to open, and when it does open is very slow to close. Maxant suggested using a hair dryer or heat gun to warm the valve prior to use, and this has helped to some extent, but it's frustrating to stand there for 5 minutes prior to pulling honey every time. Has anyone else had a similar experience, and are there any other ideas to prevent or remedy the situation? Thanks.


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## Jack Grimshaw (Feb 10, 2001)

Nice picture!
The top O ring might benefit from a little lube but ,looking at the diagram,I would bet that the spring chamber has crystallized honey that interferes with the spring compression.
Might be a good idea to see if Maxant has a rebuild kit.(they must I would think)
Always a good idea to replace O rings when you have something apart and it looks like there is a (paper?) gasket between the 2 sections of valve body

Note I said lightly grease.Put a small amount on your finger and run the O ring between you finger and your thumb,just enough to make it shine,no lumps.

Ball valve is an excellent idea!!


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Ambrose said:


> Jack,
> I have the following schematic: https://www.maxantindustries.com/pdfs/SSNDV_Instruction.pdf
> 
> There do appear to be two O rings as part of the assembly. I have thought that I would disassemble the valve and clean everything really well when the tank is empty, but there's probably still 10 gallons of honey in there and at my current rate of bottling, I won't empty it out for a while. I could drain it into buckets I suppose, but would prefer to avoid the additional transfers, so I might just suffer through until the spring.
> ...


by now is it crystalized?
if so you can do the valve job the heat it back up.

GG


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## Ambrose (May 9, 2019)

odfrank, the ball valve is a great idea. Definitely going to look into making that modification. 

Jack, thanks again for your insights and the advice. 

GG, it seems that there is only a small amount of crystallization affecting the operation of the valve. Once I warm it a little with my wife's hair dryer, it comes unstuck and after that works like a charm throughout the bottling session. It's just getting it unstuck that first time that's an issue. But regardless, I don't think it could be taken apart without draining the tank first.


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## HHFOhio (2 mo ago)

JSL said:


> Heat lamp? Those valves are really easy to take apart, completely clean and lubricate. You will be much happier with how they work. The heater mentioned above works okay, but if you are not running warm honey through the valve often enough, there are just too many places for crystallized honey to form. The first time I took one apart, I was surprised at how hard the honey had become inside the valve. It took a good bit of soaking in hot/warm water.


You mentioned in this post that they were easy to take apart? Can u provide general direction on how that is done? We removed the 4 Allen bolts but wasn't sure how the top was removed? Does the top twist off? Threaded?

Any help appreciated!


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