Got Gas Leak? One More Thing To Check!

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day_trippr

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Was looking for a thread to add this to but there wasn't anything current that didn't have "NEVER MIND" in their title ;)

This afternoon I kegged a 10 gallon batch of hazy and stuck the kegs in one of my fridges to cold condition. Decided to use the "burst carb" technique to speed things up. After dialing the regulator to 30 psi I opened two manifold valves and snapped the corresponding gas lines to the two kegs, watched a moment to make sure nothing obvious was amiss, then closed the fridge door.

Cleaned the two carboys and put them away, then did a quick gas check - something I've learned to do over the years: I closed the primary regulator shut-off valve for those two kegs, spent a few minutes policing the area I used for kegging, then went back to that regulator and opened the shut-off valve - and saw the low side pressure gauge drop then build back up.

Curious, I toggled the shut-off and every time I opened it there was a visible drop in that gauge. Gas was definitely being lost.

Long story shortened: I diagnosed a leak at the gas QD/post interface on one of the kegs. If I wiggled the QD just slightly I could actually hear the leak. I immediately replaced the post O-ring with a bit of keg lube, snapped the QD back on, and the same wiggling produced no noise. Checked out the other keg and it was sound.

I acquired my kegs beginning 17 years ago and bought my 16th within a few years. They're all ancient ball locks, many were 30-something years old when I bought them, some of them are still sporting deep battle scars from their commercial lives, but they all hold gas fairly reliably.

But I did not automatically replace all the O-rings on them and never tracked replacements, so there's no doubt many of the O-rings on my keg collection are at least 17 years old, and some of them are starting to show their age. I had a keg leaking gas in my keezer a few days ago with a notchy QD that I swapped out for cleaning - but I also replaced the gas post O-ring, which I now feel was the likely fix for that keg as well.

So, one more thing to look for if you're losing gas: give the QD a wiggle and listen closely. This was something I used to advise folks with pin lock kegs that had gas leaks - which were caused by them using ball lock post O-rings on pin lock kegs. The latter is spec'd to use slightly thicker O-rings, but many LHBS folks didn't know that, and sold ball lock O-rings to everyone, distributing tiny time bombs to unsuspecting pin lock clients.

Cheers!
 
YES!!

I have been chasing gas leaks for months between my duotight connectors and these fargen o-rings. Made the decision that every keg was getting 5 new O-rings if they wanted them or not! Kick-a-Keg, Clean-a-Keg, and then O-ring-a-Keg! (rinse and repeat until all kegs have new o-rings)

I don't know how I went over 5 years with zero CO2 issues and lately it has pestered me at every turn. (luckily I found a shop that only charges me $13/5 lb canister of CO2)
 
I do not have full faith in my current gas setup, I have had hidden leaks in the past that I resolved by reconnecting the QD or tightening the hose clamp on the QD barb.

I recently bought a few of the plastic kegland QD’s, the ones with the yellow and red tops. They seem to secure much easier than the traditional black/gray QD’s.

I am thinking about converting to evaBarrier for the gas side, but unsure of how well the duotight will do with gas.
 
fwiw, in 2019 I switched all of my beer, gas and water lines to EVABarrier tubing using mostly JohnGuest PTC fittings - just a handful of Duotight and another handful of DMfit parts were used. I'm a big fan.

Cheers!
 
Yeah I am going to go for it, I just have to figure out which hardware to buy.

1. Fitting on regulator output (I think I found parts that'll work @ MoreBeer, linked below)
2. Input on distributor in (not sure what size)
3. 2 output fittings for distributor out (not sure what size)
4. 2 duo-tight QD's

Here's the distributor block I use:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089GVYZKP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Reviews on MoreBeer say these two work on the regulator out:
https://www.morebeer.com/view_product/17553
https://www.morebeer.com/view_product/46748
 
Was wondering why after trying two QDs I was still having significant leaking on my liquid line. Then I looked closely at the post and realized that the O ring was completely toast. Glad it wasn't on the gas side or I may not have noticed until it was too late!

20250117_210908.jpg
 
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