First beer kegged.. issue with regulator

Last night i got my order from Midwest and kegged up my first beer. I followed their instructions and everything went smooth up until I applied the gas to the beer.

The directions said to pump up the regulator to 30psi, which I wanted to do anyways because I wanted to be able to serve while I brew this weekend. But no matter what i've tried, i can't see to get it up to 30psi. The closest i've been able to get it to is 27psi.

Any ideas?

This is the kit I ordered: Brew Logic Quadruple Tap Draft System with 4-way gas manifold :: Midwest Supplies Homebrewing and Winemaking Supplies

What I did was:

Connect gas to keg, turned regulator up.
Purged keg a few times to release oxygen and get a full keg of Co2
Watched regulator climb, but then stop at 27psi.
Pressure relief valve on primary regulator started to vent, so i relieved the pressure.. had to do this multiple times.
Turned Co2 off, vented keg again, and released pressure from primary regulator again.
Turned Co2 back on, this time the pressure wouldnt climb as high.. only to about 25lbs.
Rocked the keg a bit, and finally got it back up to 27lbs
Relief valve finally stopped leaking and pressure has been the same since last night.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. Temp for the fridge is set at 40*.

How about if the keg is not connected? Turn off your shutoff valves and just crank up the knob on the regulator. You should be able to turn it to 30-35 PSI without the overpressure valve venting.

If it does vent around 27 PSI you may have a bad regulator. I'd contact Midwest.

-Joe

nostalgia said:

How about if the keg is not connected? Turn off your shutoff valves and just crank up the knob on the regulator. You should be able to turn it to 30-35 PSI without the overpressure valve venting.

If it does vent around 27 PSI you may have a bad regulator. I'd contact Midwest.

-Joe

Click to expand...

I plan on calling them once they open up today.

I have the freezer over at my dads house for right now, so i'll give him a call to see if it makes a difference if he closes one of the shutoff valves.

and yea, i figured i should be able to turn it up higher than 30.. i've read of some people on here running theirs at 40psi for the first couple days so i would think 30 wouldnt be an issue.

my brewlogic will go upto about 50PSI.

I notice they don't have the smoothest control knobs, is your control knob sticking, and you aren't turning it up far enough? Mine has been working flawlessly.

Arkador said:

my brewlogic will go upto about 50PSI.

I notice they don't have the smoothest control knobs, is your control knob sticking, and you aren't turning it up far enough? Mine has been working flawlessly.

Click to expand...

how far do you have to turn it in to get 50psi?

i'm pretty sure it isnt sticking, or it atleast feel like it. i feel like its pretty tight and is getting turned in pretty far, i'm just not to familiar with how far is to far.

also why would the relief valve be bleeding off at only 27psi? after i ramped it back up again it doesnt seem to be bleeding it off, but only reason i can think of is because i ramped it up slower.

I wonder if the issue might be the pressure guage then. If the relief valve is opening, and you have the knob all the way up, the guage starts to become suspect.

Definatley call Midwest. Everyone i have talked to there is very nice, and they would be happy to spend 5 minutes on the phone with you troubleshooting it, and replace the problem part.

thanks for the info. i'm leaning towards the gauge as well.

few more minutes and i'll be giving them a call.

well either something is up with the regulator or the guage for the regulator. the guage face was coming in contact with the needle so we moved it away, but now the guage is erractic with its reading. sometimes 30 sometimes 50 and then starts venting pressure from the regulator.

i called midwest and they are sending me out another regulator today. oh well, tomorrow i'll be turning the pressure down anyways and hopefully serving some beer and my troubles will fade away fast..lol

I had some issues with my BrewLogic regulator too.
One reg. stayed at 5 regardless of how I turned the knob
And the other would let me adjust it to 5 but as soon
as I turned it higher it would shoot up to 15.
They sent me replacement that works.