Homebrewing Nightmare

[bracconiere]

Been there. Its just a different drinking experience. Looks like plenty of long straws available...

so like a 'casket' style pour?

 

[pvtpublic]

so like a 'casket' style pour?

Casket ale, what a concept!

 

[bracconiere]

Casket ale, what a concept!

...traditionally served from a reused mountain dew 2-liter..

 

[matt_m]

I've had it happen twice. Fun.

 

[balrog]

I don't leave lines hooked up except when dispensing.

This.
While I'm not a fan of the constant connect/disconnecting, I'm less a fan of Murphy's Law, to which I seem to fall victim. Of course, plenty of folks hook up multiple keezer gas/liquid connections, submersion test the snot out of them, and have no issues. I'm looking at you @day_trippr .

 

[Neldog0]

While you may not have liked my response, these corny legs were made for the soft drink industry. Having worked with these kegs for delivering pre-mix to picnics & public events, the last thing we ever wanted was to have to go back an replace the soft drink & CO2 supplies. This would have been very costly. I supplied you with the method to insure that there was no loss of CO2 or product. In my 35 years of home brewing I never had a beer or CO2 loss following the cleaning & seal replacement method. The seals on the corny legs are very inexpensive & well worth replacing to save the cost of beer & CO2 loss.

Everyone has there own method for home brewing so enjoy your efforts, relax and have a homebrew

 

[Draft Master Flash]

This same thing happened to me with an Alt. It was caused by a universal poppet in my out post. Somehow the poppet managed to turn a little sideways and enable the beer to leak out. I can remember checking my keezer that morning and nearly hitting the roof! Later on I found out it was only a little over a cup of beer that leaked out though. I was able to save the keg by just plugging in the out line but that was the last time I'm ever going to use universal poppets. I was in the process of carbing the keg by hitting it with 25 psi once or twice a day then detaching the co2. At the time I was in fear of draining my co2 tank in case of a co2 leak that had gone unnoticed. Didn't want to have to replace a drained 20 lb co2 tank again! Since then I have been just keeping the co2 at 10 psi with both lines connected and waiting for my beer to slowly carb. Also I don't use universal poppets anymore but only use the actual poppets that are made for the particular post.

DMF

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I have had that sideways o-ring problem, fortunately not on a keg of beer. I only use them on utilities like tap cleaners, and stick to the oem style poppets on my kegs...

Cheers!

 

[Neldog0]

This same thing happened to me with an Alt. It was caused by a universal poppet in my out post. Somehow the poppet managed to turn a little sideways and enable the beer to leak out. I can remember checking my keezer that morning and nearly hitting the roof! Later on I found out it was only a little over a cup of beer that leaked out though. I was able to save the keg by just plugging in the out line but that was the last time I'm ever going to use universal poppets. I was in the process of carbing the keg by hitting it with 25 psi once or twice a day then detaching the co2. At the time I was in fear of draining my co2 tank in case of a co2 leak that had gone unnoticed. Didn't want to have to replace a drained 20 lb co2 tank again! Since then I have been just keeping the co2 at 10 psi with both lines connected and waiting for my beer to slowly carb. Also I don't use universal poppets anymore but only use the actual poppets that are made for the particular post.

DMF

I only have used the oem posts on my corny kegs. The poppets get very unpredictable when you mix between oem & universal.

I have 15 corny kegs I use. Of these I only replaced three post sets with universal style. I found that I had to make sure that the poppets were made for those posts & I also had to replace the dip tube & gas tube using the same ones made by the replacement company. Once I did this, those kegs worked fine with no leaks. The other thing to keep in mind is that the plastic ball locks can wear out without any symptoms. I don’t mess around with it. If I suspect a problem with a ball lock I connect them to my cleaning set up see if their is a leakage issue. The best ball locks I have are stainless steel. These ball locks have lasted now for 15 years with no leaks.

Relax, a lot of this is figured by mistake. My advantage is that I worked in the fluid power industry for 27 years. My philosophy is simple: don’t get too frustrated, have a home brew. Any mistake we make can be fixed.

 

[Closet Fermenter]

Rather than disconnect all gas lines, beer lines, etc., I have just been flipping the gas line off after each fill. (The small one in the line, not the tank valve.) I don’t have a sophisticated setup, just kegs in a cooler with party taps. I started doing that after I had a party tap leak about 1/4 keg of carbonated water, (best possible loss ever!). Also, I get some condensation issues from lifting the lid on these muggy days in the South, but I’d rather be mopping up water than beer. The small utility area where my cooler is located just wouldn’t accommodate taps. Towers would hit the wall when I raised the lid, and through a collar taps wouldn’t allow me to pass by.
It is still possible to lose a little beer this way if faucet failed, or the post seal leaks, but only to the extent of the residual dispensing pressure in the keg. I would think that leaving the connectors on the keg would reduce wear on the seals and reduce chances of a leak if you should forget to remove them after say, 3 or 7 seven beers.