Regulator line pressure climbs to 50psi!

New kegger here with a new Brew Logic single draft system from Midwest. I siphoned the beer to the keg, sealed it up and attached only the gas line. I adjusted the regulator for 30psi and started checking for leaks around the lid. I looked back at the regulator to see it up to 50psi?? I turned off the bottle, bled the pressure and tried barely turning the pressure regulator up...same result.

Am I doing it wrong?

The beer is around 55 degrees, the keg and bottle were room temperature. I've got the keg and bottle in the mini fridge now, but turned the bottle off again due to the pressure rise.

 

It sounds like you have CO2 coming out of solution in your beer. This could be caused because the beer warmed up when you transferred to the keg, or maybe just due to the agitation. The CO2 coming out of solution in a closed vessel will increase the pressure.

 

It's the simple things that we forget

I'm pretty sure that's the cause. The air lock having issues with negative pressure when I was cold crashing and then bubbling a little when I set the carboy on the table to transfer. It never dawned on me that the co2 coming out of suspension could build that much pressure!

 

It can't. Unless you actually carbonated your beer to 50 PSI, which I find unlikely given your description so far. Gas can come out of suspension, but at best it will hit equilibrium pressure. At 55C, that's only a couple of PSI.

Make sure you shut off the gas to the keg, THEN set the reg, THEN bleed the keg of excess pressure, then turn on the keg gas supply again, (or reconnect the QD). Setting the reg independently of the keg eliminates a lot of these problems. Also, after setting the reg, pull the relief valve a couple times to make sure the reg returns to your setpoint, then reconnect gas to keg.

 

So do I leave the beer line connected after I sample and decide it needs more carb? Or should it be disconnected during the carb phase until it's ready to serve?

 

I think my regulator is defective? I just tried to adjust the pressure with the gas line disconnected from the keg and the line pressure climbed to 50psi as soon as the bottle was turned on. This happened with the pressure adjusting knob unscrewed all the way.

So I attempted again. Quick disconnect not attached to the keg, pressure knob adjusted all the way out, bottle off, I bled the line pressure so that both gauges read 0psi. I turn on the bottle and it climbed to 50psi and started hissing out of the pressure relief on the regulator. And Midwest is closed for the night...

 

Whups, yeah, sounds defective, sucky.

 

I had the issue of the hissing out of the regulator and I bought a repair kit from AHS and it took maybe 10 minutes to fix it. Works like a charm now. You may want to look into it. You might have an old gasket inside of the regulator.

edit: sorry, did see that you mentioned it was a new regulator. Might be a similar issue but with a new regulator I would expect them to replace it.

 

I had the same thing happen to me. Took a couple minutes to fix. Follow the instructions on this thread. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/my-dual-regulator-broken-am-i-217284/

 

Yep! Sacred dog's advice saved me too.when it's your first time kegging and something goes wrong you think the problem is anything but your equipment. But, in my case, and I expect in your case, this really was the problem.

 

Thanks for the fix-it advice!

I tried that and it seems like it worked or at least improved. I tested it with the gas line connected to the regulator, but not connected to the keg, and the pressure slowly, really slowly climbs...about 1psi every 10 seconds or so. I connected it back up to the keg and set it on 20psi. After 5-10 mins it is now at about 23psi. I assume this is probably normal?

 

Still holding at 23psi....so that's a good sign.

 

Thank you guys for the link. I had the same problem

 

Yup, it is. And you're learning about your reg. It took me a few trys to really understand mine. I now crank it up to 27/28psi and check again 30 minutes later to find it at my target of 30psi.

 

I left it at 23-25psi for 2.5 days and it's right on the edge of fully carbonated. I'm not sure if I should leave it at 12psi(beersmith's recommended pressure setting for about 2.5 volumes) or bump it to 15-18psi for another day. I guess this is where the experience part comes in.

 

Absolutely. I carb mine at 30psi for 20 hours and then drop to 12psi for two days. This gives me the carbonation I personally like.