Keg leak cost me 4 gallons of beer

[AUEnder]

Hey all. I have a 4-tap keezer and recently kegged a pilsner and put it on gas to lager for a few weeks before I was to tap it. The next morning I wake up and about three or four gallons of pilsner is sitting on the bottom of my keezer and I have beer in the CO2 line and manifold.

My CO2 tank is not empty, I have no CO2 leaks that I can detect, and fermentation on the pilsner was complete. My CO2 manifold is a six-way model. I use the extra two to carbonate or serve two extra kegs with party taps inside the keezer.

At the same time I did this I put a Maibock on gas to carb and have had no problems. No problems with any of the other four beers I have on tap either.

Has anyone ever experienced this? Needless to say I am very frustrated about it.

 

[SGTSparty]

I've not had this happen so I'm purely speculating here but is there any chance the keg already had more pressure in it than whatever PSI the gas line you hooked it up to had? That's the only way i could see beer coming out your gas line.

 

[owmatooth]

I've had backflow issues when i've put higher (20-30 psi) pressure on the keg then dropped the pressure on the regulator. but to have 3-4 gallons you'd have to have the beer coming out of the beer input not the co2 input- that would have self limited at the length of the 3 inch tube at about a gallon.
still doesn't explain why the pressure build up on one keg not all, but unless it was intentional to carb through the long out quick disconnect, that might be a place to start.

like above post said, perhaps the pilsner did a little fermenting in the keg before you tapped it with more gas.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

You sure you didn't hook up the gas line to the beer port?

 

[mredge73]

Sounds like you hooked them up backwards, that sucks.
I don't understand how you have beer in your manifold; if you are not using check valves, you should.
If it is hooked up backwards the QDs will be sized wrong so may leak; I cannot remember which one is smaller than the other.

 

[AUEnder]

There was no pressure on the keg when I hooked it up to gas.

The beer finished at 1.011.

If the liquid side pin lock had a leak I would expect beer shower all over the inside of my keezer. What I found was pooling and beer running into my CO2 manifold, which isn't mounted, but just situated on top of the kegs over a gap between kegs and the wall of the keezer.

I'll break the keg down when I get home and update. I've recently broken down all my kegs for cleaning and replacing worn o-rings. Maybe I messed up that one putting it back together.

Even if I put the beer dip tube on the gas side, I still don't understand how this happened. Sometimes I'll carb through the dip tube by changing out the gas pin lock connecter with a liquid pin lock connecter and hooking the gas on the liquid side. No problems, ever.

 

[SGTSparty]

Interesting/frustrating. Just for clarification, you said manifold and not secondary regulators so I'm assuming all 6 lines are at the same PSI? What PSI did you have your CO2 at when you hooked it up? Did you change the PSI at all once you connected it? It doesn't sound like it but the only way I can think of beer getting into a gas line is if the pressure in the keg was lower than the pressure in the line which shouldn't happen unless you somehow had pressure in the keg when you hooked it up or you started carbing and then dropped your pressure in the lines. Keep us posted, I'm very curious.

 

[AUEnder]

Update: all six lines are at the same PSI. No secondary regulators. I never changed PSI from 12. Keg was unpressurized when I hooked it up.

I pulled the keg and all 5 gallons of beer were lost. The keg had no pressure in it, so this is a keg issue. I just don't understand why the beer was in the CO2 line. Dip tubes and pin locks were in correct positions.

I'm mopping out five gallons of pilsner now. Disaster.

 

[schatzke]

I'm confused as to where the beer leaked out from

 

[corkybstewart]

I've had cracked post o-rings leak a full keg into my kegerator before, that's why I change o-rings with every refill. If you had not caught it it would have drained your CO2, you're probably almost out of gas already.

 

[mongoose33]

I'd read stories like this before, and whenever I hook up a new keg I look for leaks, then check it again maybe 1/2 to 1 hour later. Knock on wood, I haven't had too much trouble, but I did catch a slow leak once by doing this.

 

[oujens]

I was fiddling with my kegging equipment to tap a beer. I noticed where I tighten the worm clamps the hose had torn a smidge. Made me think it you might have some holes in your hose at the connections that might have caused the leak?

 

[seatazzz]

Throwing this out there - maybe the PRV? I just filled one of my kegs and the PRV is being persnickety. I already carbed it so once it kicks will take it apart.