I did something stupid! Help fix?

Ok, so I am new to the kegging scene. Got a nice used corny keg and all the needed supplies. Took everything apart, cleaned, sanitized and put back together. Hooked up the full keg of homebrew to CO2 and about 2 weeks later, I have very little carb in the beer, just set it to 12 lbs. PSI and let it sit. My Co2 tank shows no real loss, as in a major leak, but my bear is semiflat. Sprayed for leaks, not really seeing anything. Here is my main question, I think I may have put the keg back together the wrong way, ie; gas in post and liquid out post on to the keg in wrong spot. Not really sure, I thought I had everything set out in the right order for putting back together,but now I am questioning myself. Is there some way to figure this out and see if that is where I am losing my carb? $70 batch of Belgian Dubbel sitting half carbed is really getting to me! Thanks for all the help!

depending on your temp, 12 lbs may not be enough. Did you already make temp adjustments?

I force carb, so I pump CO2 through in "out" all the time and it works fine, so I would assume that is not your issue.

I'm also not a natural carber, but my gut is telling me jaynik is right.

At 12 lbs, for a Belgian dubbel your beer should be at 40 degrees for proper carbonation.
There are charts you can use to tell you but I checked beersmith.
Also if you put your posts on backwards the taps would not easily go on, you would have had to of forced them.
Also If you want to drink it now you can force carb t back up. Find a chart, and see what volume of CO2 you want and how cold your beer is. Set your regulator for 30lbs put the keg on its side and roll it for 15mins. shut off the gas (leave the ''in" tap on) and continue to roll it. The pressure gauge will continue to drop but stop at current CO2 pressure in the beer. If it stops at 12lbs at 40 degrees (for example) your done. If not, rinse and repeat.

I am at about 34 degrees and 12 PSI. I think I am going to try and jack up the pressure for a bit and see what happens and maybe the roll method too. Thanks! Also, does it matter that I have my co2 tank in the fridge w the keg?

Sounds like you have a leak somewhere. Doesn't matter if you put the posts on backwards as long as you know whack is in and out. Che k your regulator and gas lines. If you don't have a deadhead in the gas line then the co2 will not be forced into the liquid. The gauge might read 12 psi but if it only lightly carbed it could be a lot lower. It sounds like it is escaping somewhere.

Yeah, I think I have a leak somewhere, now just how do I track it down? I will start with the soapy water spray down tomorrow I guess.. Ugh.

I tend to think that if it were due to a leak, a 5# tank would drain in less than 2 weeks. Check the pressure gauge, and make sure it is reading correctly, and that you are actually putting in 12 psi. Do you have another gauge you can check with?

Are leaving the taps on the posts the whole time?
If not the pressure will drop as CO2 is absorbed into beer.
Maybe the tap isn't seated correctly and same thing is happening.

Does your keg have a pressure relief? Pull that and listen for gas flowing back in. It should come back up to pressure fairly quickly and with mine I can definitely hear gas flowing.

I have shaken/ rolled kegs before to Carb fast. Just keep in mind that any sediment that has most likely dropped during you two week lager will stirred back up.

A friend of mine had a leak in his system that he had a hard time finding. His co2 bottle would empty out in a day or two. We could not find the leak with the usual methods. Finally he just went out and got a new regulator. Fixed the problem. Those regulators are a precision instrument. I'm not sure how you handle yours but I can remember a few times I banged mine around.

phelics said:

Sounds like you have a leak somewhere. Doesn't matter if you put the posts on backwards as long as you know whack is in and out. Che k your regulator and gas lines. If you don't have a deadhead in the gas line then the co2 will not be forced into the liquid. The gauge might read 12 psi but if it only lightly carbed it could be a lot lower. It sounds like it is escaping somewhere.

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you can have a leak while still carbonating your beer. only if you run out of CO2 before the keg is carbonated will it stop. or, if then, the CO2 that dissolved escapes from that leak, you will be left with a completely uncarbonated beer.

also what exactly is your definition of "a deadhead"? CO2 will be forced into the liquid at a rate given the temperature and pressure. nothing else is required.

it really just sounds like either- you didnt give it enough time; it wasnt cold enough; there wasnt enough pressure or the gauge might be inaccurate. unless theres a huge leak and you notice the tank emptying pretty quickly, a small leak would be irrelevant.

My experience is that a 5lbs tank dies in a day or less when there is a leak. Even small leaks don't take long to kill a tank. That's why I have a back up 5lbs tank for my 20lbs tank. I don't always get to check it as often as I would like and so I don't always catch a sudden drop in my regulator until it is too late.

It took about a week for my friends 5lb tank to empty when it leaked from the regulator. A deadhead is when something is preventing the free flow of gas or liquid through the system. In this case the keg would be the final stop forcing the co2 to be diffuse into the beer. When there is a leak, the co2 has an escape causing less pressure forced into your keg resulting in lower co2 volume. Remember, it takes around 2weeks to get desired co2 volume in the beer. Imagine if you released the pressure every day, for no reason, it would probably take longer to achieve your desired results.

only if the leak is large enough that it vents gas faster than the regulator will provide. if its a small leak, there will still be almost 100% of set pressure in the keg ontop of the beer, and it will still carbonate. gas flow elsewhere in the system is irrelevant.

Imagine if you released the pressure every day, for no reason, it would probably take longer to achieve your desired results.

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only if your regulator didnt immediately refill what was released. it would only increase the carbonation time, by the total amount of time you held the pressure release open (like 60 seconds?). you would waste a lot of gas, yes. but it wouldnt take considerably longer unless the beer is left off of the gas, or unpressurized, for long periods of time.