Pressure Issue

Hello Homebrew friends,

My buddy and I recently came across a new and unanticipated issue; kegging our oatmeal stout we discovered a leak in the vent pin of our corny keg. This is the first time we have had this issue (this is the first time using this keg) and s a result we tried sealing the underside of the whole keg top to prevent any leaky gas but strangly we ended up forcing beer back into the tube leading to the CO2 tank.
First question, how severely will a very mild leak impact our ability to properly carbonate?
Second, does anyone know of any MacGuyver type resolutions for this issue?

Thanks,
~Dan

A small leak will not impact your ability to carbonate in the short term. The CO2 tank will easily overcome the loss of pressure if it's small enough, keeping the apparent pressure inside the keg exactly what you want. The down side is that you will consume CO2 faster than you would otherwise - this may or may not be a big deal depending on the size of the leak.

As for a fix... without a better understanding of what the actual problem is, that may be hard to come by. If the leak is coming from your pressure relieve / emergency blow off valve, you may have a bad seal. There is a small rubber o-ring at the base of the pin and I had one fail. My LHBS sold replacement parts and it was up and running in no time flat. I tried to MacGuyver a solution by putting various things inside there to seal it and have had zero success.

-Kevin