Trouble with first keg

[EarlRig]

I've been brewing on and off for about 15 years, but I am new to kegging. I kegged my first brew, set the regulator at 10 psig, and I've been drinking off it for about 5 weeks. It has been going fine. I drink about 1-2 pints a day. In the last couple of days, the beer has started foaming a lot, which I took as a sign of a nearly empty keg. I noticed yesterday, however, that the regulator is at 15 psig. I never changed the setting, and I'm quite sure no one else has fooled with it. I am also sure that this just happened recently, as I glance at the gauges sometimes. The other thing that puzzles me is that the upstream gauge reads nearly empty, as if the CO2 tank is almost out.

Is it likely that I have a bad regulator, or is my tank leaking? The change in pressure setpoint suggests to me the former. I don't know why the tank would hold all this time and then suddenly develop a leak with no change in connections and no one touching the setup, but I guess it's possible.

Thanks for any advice which can be offered,

EarlRig

 

[day_trippr]

Assuming you started with a full tank of CO2 (pretty much any size) most likely your dispensing system had a gas leak all along, small enough to let you get through most of the one keg before the happiness came to an end. Regulators require a minimum input/output differential to work properly; the regulator may lose its mind when there's no gas left?

Refill the CO2 tank, make up a spray bottle of either standard Star San/water mix or 50/50 dishwashing liquid/water, hook everything up, turn on the gas, and spray all of the connections and gasketed fittings (keg lid, gas disconnect-to-tubing connections, tank to regulator stem, tank shutoff valve stem, regulator fittings at their respective connections to the body, any inline shutoffs, etc).

Somewhere you will find a leak.

Also, if you're not already using it, get some keg lube (eg: any generally-accepted-as-safe silicone-based grease - check the plumbing aisle or your LHBS) and use it on everything rubber. It helps - a lot...

Cheers!

 

[haberdasher]

Regs can creep a bit when the tank gets low, especially if the tank is in the fridge as well. Cold regs are not as accurate.

 

[lombard]

Another thing to keep in mind. The CO2 in your bottle isn't actually compressed gas. It's actually compressed enough that it turns in to a liquid. The head space above the liquid level in the bottle is gas. It'll maintain a constant pressure until there's no liquid left, then the pressure will drop as the gas is fed out of the bottle.

Because of this, you'll never see a pressure drop in the bottle until it's almost empty. Just something to keep on mind.