CO2 Bottle Pressure

I just purchased a kegging system (pin lock corny, 5lb CO2, duel reg, picnic tap for now), Holiday 5 cu ft freezer, and a digital thermostat (dude this rules I have beer on draft!). All is going well and I just racked into the keg and its cooling right now. I burped the keg to purge the o2 out, and put 10psi into the corny.

Since the tubing is not long enough I need to leave the co2 tank in the freezer but obviously the pressure is going down in the tank. Should this cause a problem with carbing? I ask because the pressure dropped into the re-fill range on the regulator... my temp is at 40 F

Thanks in advance.

As long as you don't have a leak in your system depleting your co2 your fine. (Try submerging all your connections in water. If you see bubbles, you have a leak.) Your gauge will drop if you chill your co2 bottle. Usually mine drop to about 500, from 850 at ambient temps.

i would say that most of your CO2 is now in the liquid phase so it's no longer giving off as much pressure. But it's all still there (unless there's a leak).

Regarding carbonation...according to the charts...it's dependent on two things. The partial pressure of the CO2... (ie 10 PSI of 100% CO2) and the temperature of the liquid (beer). Everything else is inconsequential.

The CO2 High Pressure Gauge becomes more like a temperature gauge...until the liquid is depleted in the cylinder. The best measure of how much CO2 is in the tank is to weigh it. Subtract the empty weight of the cylinder from the current measure...and you have your weight of CO2. The High Pressure Gauge is more useful with stuff like N2, that's all gas in a HP cylinder... Gases still change pressure with temperature though. PV=nRT or the Ideal Gas Equation...as you can see...the P (pressure) and the T (temperature) are on balancing sides of the equation. So...as long as the other items, Moles of Gas, Volume of the container remain the same... Pressure will change proportionally to Temperature changes.

Enjoy your Beer...If you're concerned-- weigh the CO2 bottle. Most have a stamp on the neck with the tare weight of the bottle...most times in KG and in LBS. If not...it's a good idea to weigh it the next time it's empty...before you get it filled...and make a label with the weight on there for future reference. I do this to all my paintball tanks, so I can make sure that they're not overfilled.