Problems Force Carbing

[kike_gimenez]

Hey All! thanks for reading...

Basically I started kegging recently and the first 2 beers my Cylinder went out it turns out my regulator had a leak, it was a lil bent seems took a little hit on the shipping.

Well I borrowed another regulator that I was told it works fine. Heres the thing. Im carbing up a Coconut Porter since last night. Started at room temperature but I just made room in my freezer and its now sitting @ 63F . My co2 Cylinder was bought in December has only been used 3 times by me, its practically new.

When I got home yesterday from fillin the cylinder at room temperature the regulator marked 1200 PSI capacity. I started carbing up the beer and this morning was sitting @ 1100 PSI ( might have purged a few times the keg ). So far it doesnt seem much and its fine. But since this morning I placed the keg @ 63F like i just said and had to purge because the regulator my friend borrowed me has no emergency release valve.

By the time I placed inside the freezer it was @ 900 PSI from 1100 it had this morning before the purge of gas. It has passed 2 hours and its now just below the 900 around 870 PSI or so.

Is this right ? Seems to me its still leaking and might be the cylinder ? 300 PSI consumed overnight doesnt seem right for me. I know when temperature drops the cylinder will mark less gas than the tank actually has on it, but I dont think it should be much.

Any thoughts on this ? Im guessin the borrowed regulator is also leaking. I checked with soap and water and I couldnt see any bubbles. Im checkin every hour either way. But it seems to me its droppin too fast and might be leaking.

Im so paranoid about leaks right now. Sigh. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys...

 

[gibsonmi]

This is what I would do, disconnect the supply from the keg, leave pressure in the line, and shut off the tank and see if the line holds pressure. If it does I think your setup is fine, you could have a leak from a bad o-ring on the keg so check that or replace it if you have a spare. The pressure in the tank will drop with the temperature too, I've never watched to see how much though

 

[kike_gimenez]

Thanks a lot! Will try that...seems ok for now hasnt droped from 800 yet.

Another question. How critical is purging when it comes to the gaslife of a tank? lets say you have a 5gal keg about halfway filled, and you have it set @ 30 psi. steady, not making any sounds of gas flow. If you purge at this point you lose 30 psi ? or so ? How does this works.

I ask this because last night I might have purged a few times the whole keg.

Thanks for reading. Sorry for the newbish questions. ;(

 

[jbaysurfer]

That dial measures pressure inside the cylinder. If you chill the cylinder, it's going to show a large drop in pressure, and read like you're low on c02. You're not.

I consider that dial more of a temperature indicator then a C02 volume indicator tbh, it's kinda worthless to me.

Purging a full keg to 30 PSI is not going to use that much c02. I use c02 to push beer from one keg to the next, to push cleaner and sanitizer through multiple kegs, to flush headspace after racking (3-7 times), and it lasts a long time.

Also, I shoulda said this first. Get a spray bottle with starsan solution in it and spray your whole setup at ever possible leak spot from the cylinder gate valve to the keg relief valve, and look carefully for leaks.

 

[stratslinger]

OK, what temperature do you have your freezer set at? I'm not 100% certain I followed you, but it sounds like you're putting the cylinder inside the freezer? There are a few things possibly going on here:

First to be addressed: What pressure do you have your regulator set at, and why do you keep purging?

Purging should only be done at 2 times:

1) When you initially seal the keg - when you first fill a keg and seal it, there's plain old air (including a bunch of oxygen) in the headspace of the keg. So, you pressurize the keg, and purge it (very brief bursts - 1 or 2 seconds each) 2 or 3 times to clear that air out and make sure that there is only CO2 in the headspace.

2) When you are about to step down pressure. You disconnect the CO2 supply, purge your keg, adjust the pressure setting on your regulator to a lower pressure, then reconnect. This is done because if you just reduced the pressure setting on your regulator with everything hooked up, there's a chance that the backpressure from your keg would cause beer to flow back into your beer lines and possibly back into your regulator.

Any other purging is just a waste of gas and will make your beer take longer to carb up.

And then comes the reason for asking if and when you placed your CO2 cylinder in your freezer. If you didn't already know this, gas pressure drops at lower temperatures. So, if you take a cylinder that reads 1200psi at room temperature and place it in a freezer set to 40F, then come back once the cylinder has dropped to that temperature, the pressure will have dropped to probably 800 or 900PSI. No gas will have been lost - the pressure will have simply dropped. PSI is simply pressure, not the actual amount of CO2. That's best figured by weight. So, if somewhere in there you dropped the temperature of your cylinder, that'd also explain the drop in pressure.

 

[jbaysurfer]

I believe the science says you should purge at least 3 times ^ to clear as much 02 out as possible before diminishing returns. I purge at least 5 times after I rack a keg.

That may seem like overkill or a waste of C02 to you, but it's tantamount to a couple pennies worth of c02, and a million bucks worth of piece of mind.

The pressure drop, I obviously agree with you on (since I addressed it as well in my post).

 

[kike_gimenez]

hey! thanks for answering!

Well first off the temperature in my "freezer" its 64ish F. I use it as my fermentation chamber since I live in South America and temp here right now its around 92F. I have it currently set to 25 PSI which according to http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php its about right for 64F.

I purged it a few times because the regulator I borrowed from a friend does not have an emegency release valve. So when placing my keg with the cylinder and hose inside the freezer. Had to disconnect the gas line off the keg since it would not fit. I did this with the Tank closed. And the gas line rapidly filled with the gas that was in the regulator marking the 1200psi automatically bumpin the 25 psi to the max, and I had to quickly connect the gas lline again to the keg. So I purged the keg totally. Disconnected the gas line off the keg again. placed it inside the freezer and connected everything back up.

After 3 hours the tank is sitting right now at 800psi capacity. And it seems stable. I did check for leaks with soapy water and starsan several times and foudn no leaks.

I think the difference from 1200psi to 800psi on my tank capacity has to do with:

1. Cooling of the gas tank.
2. Unnecessary purge.
3. Absorbtion of gas by the beer itself (carbing up).

Am I right ?

Thanks again for reading!

 

[stratslinger]

OK, now I understand your temperature. I hope you have really long tap lines, because if you keep that beer at 25psi and 63F, it's going to pour really foamy!!! I don't even know how long a line you'd need to balance that kind of pressure at that temperature... 10ft lines probably wouldn't begin to touch it.

I think I sort of understand what you're saying about an emergency release valve - but I also think you really need to undertand how a regulator works. When you set a regulator to a given pressure, that regulator is going to hold that pressure, period. There is no need to worry about releasing pressure, emergency release valve or no. Set the regulator to your desired pressure and leave it alone. It's what folks around here like to call the "set it and forget it" method. If you didn't have a regulator, well, regulating the pressure in your system, then the emergency release valve would be a more important thing.

I'm sure there's someone around here that would know the math to calculate it, but going from 92F to 64F, 1200PSI to 800PSI sounds pretty reasonable.

 

[kike_gimenez]

Heys!

Thanks for answering stratslinger!

Yea it turns out the little time that was inside the freezer dropped quite a bit. I took the whole thing out of the fridge and after 9 hours it came back up to 1100 PSI and its carbing pretty good so far. And yes I drop down the psi to around 12 to pour tests .

Thanks all for reading. I think my doubts have been solved.

Happy brewing all!