Keg and CO2 tank emptied overnight

I kegged a great IPA the other day and put it in my 42 degree kegerator to force carb at 30 PSI. I left it at 30 PSI for 24 hours and then dropped it to 12PSI to finish carbing it. I pulled a small sample after the first 24 hours and it was great. I woke up the next morning to find all 5 gal of beer sitting in a giant puddle on my garage floor. Not only was the keg completely empty but so was my CO2 tank. What happened? My kegerator is pretty old and the temp fluctuates from time to time, is it possible the CO2 froze and blew itself out of the tank forcing all the beer out? I'm extremely frustrated and just want an explanation. As always, I appreciate any input.

Well if it spilled all the beer then that would point to a leak on the liquid side of the keg. I would look for a leaks anywhere from the liquid out post onward. Common problems are where the hose is connected to the hose barb for the faucet shank or disconnect. I'd look there first.

I feel for you man. That's a pretty sad sight to see.

You don't think it had anything to do with freezing temperatures? Only because it held fine for 24 hours at 30 PSI, no liquid or air leakage (I checked several times during that 24 hour period). I'm assuming that if there was a leak on the liquid side it would occur under 30 PSI and not 12. But what to do I know, I'm just a guy who gets a horrible flashback every time I open my garage door.

Freezing temps may have been what caused it. If it got warmer then more CO2 may have came out of solution and caused a pressure build up. I don't know. I'm really not sure what did cause it. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that what went wrong went wrong on the liquid side of your set up. In order for large amounts of beer to be spilled the dip tube would have to be involved pointing to a liquid side leak. If there was a leak on the gas side then you would just have ended up with an empty tank of gas.

I lost ~4 gallons of a stout a couple of weeks ago - same situation, beer all over the garage floor and an empty C02 tank. The spilled beer does point to a liquid-side leak. In my case it was a picnic tap that was pushed open when I shut the fridge.

Cellar is exactly right. It is a liguid side problem and freezing temp would not start that problem I don't think.

PortageeExpress said:

In my case it was a picnic tap that was pushed open when I shut the fridge.

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When you described the problem this is exactly where my mind went. It is something I fear with my party tap kegerator. So far I have been lucky but this could easily happen if you, or I, are not careful.

EDIT: I just read your question about the freezing co2. Short answer: No this could not be it. Not possible. There is no way you could possibly freeze that co2 first off. Second, it wouldn't push anything harder if you did manage that great feat. Just the opposite actually.

Possibly you froze a line or fitting on the liquid out line and it broke? What kind of taps are you using?

I agree that it didn't happen on the co2 side.

CO2 freezes at roughly -40* Celsius at 900 psi, and I believe its volume would either stay the same or get smaller upon freezing, so if anything it would have sucked your beer into the tank.

I had a self closing ball lock keg beer faucet on it from Williams. No tubing for the beer to freeze in.

Then the beer must have either come out the faucet itself, or from around the ball lock fitting. Maybe a faulty faucet, something got stuck in it keeping it from sealing completely (hop matter maybe?), or a bad seal between the faucet and the keg. It's definitely not sounding likely it was a temperature related problem at this point.

Seeing that you had it at 30PSI for a significant amount of time, clearly something new cropped up.

Cracked disconnect, cut o-ring, loose keg post, etc.

You couldn't tell just by looking at it? I would think the failure point would be fairly obvious. Where does the stream of sticky stuff start from?

Do you have clamps on all your tubing/barb connections?

I have a clamps on my connections. Nothing looks abnormal on the keg or faucet. I even repressurized the empty tank with the same faucet and it was holding pressure fine. This is bizarre. I appreciate all the input.

if if froze, did the beer freeze?

if theres a faucet on the keg, a lot of times those o-rings are crap. if they froze with a little bit of beer in them it could have cracked something and caused the leak. there could be a leak anywhere, but +1 on the liquid side because of the beer everywhere. i lost 5 gal of apfelwein to a cracked barb on a shank.

it would really be anywhere.

hook up your keg at the pressure that it leaked(12psi) sometimes a cracked o-ring will hold up better under higher(30psi) pressures because they are being compressed more.

then make a soap solution and put it everywhere there is a connection

This is really weird considering that you repressurized the keg (assuming you didnt alter any connections) then all the keg connections are holding, no broken o rings.... If no beer lines are at fault, o rings are solid, the keg holds pressure, it shouldnt have been a line or keg issue (pin hole in the keg). I would have to assume that some how your tap got knocked just slightly open, beer poured out, once the beer and CO2 were done the tap could have just fallen closed. Do you have cats, could have rubbed against the handel and been the culprit (I have actually watched a cat do this)?

I dunno this is a strange one. Make sure and just check your hoses to make sure they are securely connected. As mentioned above, once pressurized use a soapy (or starsan) solution to check for small leaks. Fill a keg with water and pump it up to 12 psi see if you can make it happen again, make sure to check around all connections really well. Who knows. Whenever I have a leak I just look for the source, normally you can find one. Hopefully you can find the issue, im curious now.

Do you have any enemies who know where you stash your beer?

Haha, no enemies I can think of. I'm going to take both posts off and do a thorough investigation.

Perhaps at the high pressure of 30 lbs the seals were solid, yet at the pressure dropped a loose connection allowed a seal to leak.
Any signs of where the beer dripped out of? I would think with 5 gallons some tell tell sings would be there.
Re-pressurize it at your serving presure and temp, and spray some soapy water on it to check for leaks. If that shows nothing then you really need to fill the keg with water and maybe oxyclean, and recreate the problem. Rinse the outside well and any leak will leave a coat of film you should be able to see.
Find the problem before you loose any more beer.
Man, this would really bug me.