Anyone else's CO2 leaking out due to cold fridge?

I just lost my CO2 again after dripping the temp on my fridge. I bought a thermometer so I could get the right temp and line length. It was reading pretty warm, so I dropped the temp a bit and suddenly the CO2 was gone! This has happened before, but I thought I had moved the QD away fromt eh back of the fridge enough to prevent it from happening again.

The problem is that the back of the fridge is the only place where there are cooling coils. As a result, in order to get the whole fridge cold enough, the back has ice forming on it!

I suppose I could turn the keg around so that the liquid line is at the back, but I"m getting tired of having my tanks purged out like this!

Are you sure the tank is empty? When I put my newly filled CO2 tank in the fridge the gauge that measures overall tank pressure falls dramatically. But this is due to the temp drop and the gas shrinking inside the tank, there is no loss of CO2. The same amount of CO2 is still in the tank. Try sitting your tank outside of your kegerator and see if your gauge perks back up.

might think about getting a small computer fan to circulate the air inside the fridge.. then you might not have to turn it down as low to get the same overall temp..

bighandsray said:

Are you sure the tank is empty? When I put my newly filled CO2 tank in the fridge the gauge that measures overall tank pressure falls dramatically. But this is due to the temp drop and the gas shrinking inside the tank, there is no loss of CO2. The same amount of CO2 is still in the tank. Try sitting your tank outside of your kegerator and see if your gauge perks back up.

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No, it had been steady at just about 500 lbs for a couple of weeks. I think it normally starts out at around 800 lbs warm, and drops in the fridge.

Emyrs said:

might think about getting a small computer fan to circulate the air inside the fridge.. then you might not have to turn it down as low to get the same overall temp..

Click to expand...

That is not a bad idea. It would not take very much air movement to help, although the fridge is pretty small, and I wonder why there is so much difference between the ambient air and the surface of the back wall.

hey thanks for the info guys, i was about to come on here with the same question. I put my co2 in the fridge last night on 10 psi and it was at 800. This morning I woke up and it was just barely touching the red (time to fill up) line. I was like NOOOOO!!! Now I see it is due to the temp in the fridge!

I have a little PC fan in mine to keep the coils from icing, just be careful I just tossed it in to see if it would work and it somehow fell up against my co2 tank and surprisingly the plastic blades of the fan win against the aluminum tank and I have a .025 deep chunk out of the tank now.

Homercidal said:

I just lost my CO2 again after dripping the temp on my fridge. I bought a thermometer so I could get the right temp and line length. It was reading pretty warm, so I dropped the temp a bit and suddenly the CO2 was gone! This has happened before, but I thought I had moved the QD away fromt eh back of the fridge enough to prevent it from happening again.

The problem is that the back of the fridge is the only place where there are cooling coils. As a result, in order to get the whole fridge cold enough, the back has ice forming on it!

I suppose I could turn the keg around so that the liquid line is at the back, but I"m getting tired of having my tanks purged out like this!

Click to expand...

I don't understand how you think you are losing the gas. A leak forming because your gas disconnect is cold?

I agree with post above that leaking because it's cold is an unknown. I can think of several ways to combat that if it is the case. Try silicone o-rings, add a lot of keg lube to existing o-rings and/or put a piece of foam board insulation between the kegs and the fridge coil to push the cold air around the kegs.

My theory is that the QD on the keg shrunk from the cold and allowed a small leak to form which emptied the keg in a few days.

Also, when I took the tank back to have it filled, they asked about the O-ring on the reg, and I said it seemed fine, I checked for leaks with starsan. Well, when I got home to screw the regulator back on, I noticed it WAS leaking a bit and the O-ring looked flat. I went back to have it replaced, and they gave me a whole different style that looks like it will work better.

I put it in and it didn't seem to leak, so we'll see. I also spun the kegs around so the fluid line is near the back. That way the worse that can happen is that the lines get icy, but they are not resting against the back like before.

Oh, and my IPA got a bit cloudy from being moved... Still tasted ok after I poured a tall glass of gunk away. The Blonde still has a funny taste I assume is high fermentation. Oh well.