Keg Explosion! I need of some answers

3 days ago I kegged my American Lite Lager. A solid B beer, not great, but tasty. I forced kegged the beer, shook the **** out of it.

Sooo, tonight, I go into the basement and find a trail of dried film leading from my fridge to my drain. I open the fridge to find about half an inch of beer in the bottom. One keg is fine, while the other keg was spurting a little bit of beer from the beer out terminal. Not quite the terminal, after the terminal, right by the metal screw that connects the terminal to the keg line out.

I lifted the keg to see how much was left, and to my surprise, all of the beer was gone...... Aparently, the beer slowly escaped last night and into today. 5 gallons, gone overnight. Woah is me.

What could have caused this? My psi was around 15 on the regulator, maybee a lil higher but under 20. Do you think that blew the connector from the terminal to the keg line out? Got picnic tap. Would like to know what piece of equipment to yell at, and don't want to put another 5 gallons into it untill I know what went wrong...

Did you upset Jesus?

What metal screw are you talking about? I'm trying to picture it in my head and can't figure out what part of the keg you are describing. A picture would help, or maybe someone else knows off-hand.

When you say "metal screw" are you talking about a hose clamp? I'm picturing a loose hose connection and beer being blown out.
A picture would be a big help.

Rip the delicious nectar of man.. Sorry for your loss.

Sounds like a not-so-slow leak through a bum gasket in your liquid-out post. Sorry for your loss, man.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinalf/5328472011/" title="Busted by JustinAlf, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5010/5328472011_92a84ef685.jpg" width="374" height="500" alt="Busted" /></a>

When i tried to tighten it, I could with my finger, so I guess I needed to tighten it...

Damnit try this one. Bad night...http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinalf/5328472011/

That's a link to a private page. Do your disconnects have a molded hose barb or is it a threaded male flare fitting?

is this the picture you are trying to post?



seems like you may have figured it out though. Sad times man...

Is that the picture? And where it is leaking? Did you not have a hose clamp on it?

from his description i am thinking he did not fully tighten the FFL connector to the MFL part of the disconnect. it was not even finger tight as he was able to tighten it with his finger after the explosion.

That will do it. Personally I have the barbed fittings with nice snug hose clamps. Sorry for your loss.

I thought it seemed like what the OP was trying to say that it was the keg post (like this): ??
http://www.chicompany.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_3_260&products_id=1134&zenid=a3016f7eb5ae8a65c3c0bd35549d2ccd

I've always made sure that my posts are well tightened, but even still, I have had a couple instances of beer trickling out the out poppet valve in the post. To combat any leakage...make sure you do have those posts tightened, well lubricate your rubber gaskets (both the poppet valve and out tube), and one other thing I've found is that I don't have any problems going ahead and connecting the disconnect even at 30 PSI (I have barbed disconnects with clamps, so no liquid is escaping there!).

That is indeed my picture.

It was indeed between the threads and the post where it leaked. It is in fact a threaded piece that attaches the hose to the post.

I've actually had problems with this picnic line before.... It seemed like it almost froze once while in the fridge and it also spewed a little beer out before, but never an entire keg!

Is there a gasket on the end of the flare?

Ahh. I see the difference now. My correctly working picnic keg line is as barb connect, whereas the one in the picture is a male female connect like this : http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/kegging/soda-kegs-fittings/ball-disc-1-4-mfl-liq.html

Perhaps this si the cause of my problem. I think I bought this particular line from my LHBS, and do not like that it is not transparent.

Still, plenty of people use the threaded fittings successfully. Any idea why it wasn't tightened down all the way? Is there a gasket like bobby_m asked?

You do have threaded to threaded, right? Or did you just slip the hose over the threaded fitting?

Yes, there is a gasket inside of the connector attached to the keg line connect, not on the actual post.

It may have come loose during my fiddling around with dispensing. I have 2 picnic taps for 2 kegs in my fridge, and commonly wrap the lines around the kegs to dispense. Perhaps I twisted it around enough to loosen it?

and yes, fitted to fitted.

Not really related to the keg, but this is another example of the importance of drains in a house. I don't understand why more houses don't have more floor drains. Saves a lot of work when it hits the fan.

I'm not sure why you'd use a threaded connect for picnic tap tubing. The tubing itself has some give to it, along with getting more motion then stationary beverage tubing....so maybe barb connects would be more advantagous in this case?

davesrose said:

I'm not sure why you'd use a threaded connect for picnic tap tubing. The tubing itself has some give to it, along with getting more motion then stationary beverage tubing....so maybe barb connects would be more advantagous in this case?

Click to expand...

It's what I got when I picked it up at my lhbs, which i no longer use.