My entire keg of my first lager drained out

[Somebirs]

I am devastated. I have no idea what happened. I legged my first lager last weekend and two days ago I connected the beer line to try it and left it connected. Today, I looked at the bottom of the keezer and there are three inches of foamy beer on the bottom and the keg is empty. The step of the keezer below the beer line is also wet with beer, so best I can gather, it was leaking from the line. If there was a pinhole in the line, it would slowly drain from the pressure, right? Man, this is horrible. This lager took like three months to get to this point.

 

[KYB]

Lame. If you have threaded quick disconnects, make sure those are tight. I had my girlfriends second beer carbonating (BGSA she designed and brewed, I was going to bottle and label and wax some of them) and I went to check on it for some reason, sure enough a small puddle of beer. Luckily I didn't lose but maybe a 1/2 gallon. The threaded QD wasn't tight. Probably loosened from twisting the hose around over time.

 

[jasonkeithscott]

Yeah, sh*t sucks, lost a whole keg, same way. Was just about to get my buddies some fresh samples of my latest batch when HORROR SHOW.

Had to pull everything out of the keezer, hose it out, clean the other kegs, etc, etc. I ordered 100s of new o-rings from McMaster, replaced them on all my kegs, re-lubed them all, and ditched the suspect liquid disconnects.

I did pull a pint off the keezer floor so we could sample, but it still sucked.

 

[Golddiggie]

Where did you get the beer line from that had a hole in it?

After you replace the line, I would pressurize a keg to 20-30psi and connect the line to it (have it connected to something on the other end to hold pressure). I find at about 30psi, ANY leak will be heard. Finding it should be pretty simple. At worst, get a spray bottle of StarSan and spray the lines until you find the leak.

 

[Dok]

I had the same thing! And of course it was a beautiful cream ale that I still can't duplicate.

 

[Veedo]

Been there man, mine was due to an undersized post o ring.

 

[tektonjp]

Probably a connection point rather than the hose. Did you check for air leaks, that is, a dry check to make sure the liquid line was holding pressure?

 

[Cromwell]

I had the same thing! And of course it was a beautiful cream ale that I still can't duplicate.

You have to put down the extra brewing step - "Run beer over the floor of the keezer and leave it er, leave it, er, lager it for a day.

Repeatability is all about good documentation. :cross:

 

[Somebirs]

I think I located it. O ring connecting the beer line to the shank. I had taken the line off while this beer was lagering in the keezer, and I forgot to put the O ring back on. Costly and critical mistake on my part.

The beer basically slowly oozed out of that connection, down the line, onto the hump and down to the floor while I was clueless about it.

 

[smellie_hippie]

I was gettign super excited about displaying my keg system to all my brew buddies this weekend. 4 taps, on father's day! Just got the system up to 90% finished, and put the last keg in two days ago.

I was having problems with one keg in particular. My Whiskey Scottish Ale was spitting nothing but foam, despite the fact that it had been set at 10PSI for the past 8 months waiting for me to finish the garage and kegerator. Did a check the other night and noticed that I had the beer and liquid lines backwards... so no big deal. Woke up to check on it this morning, and it had bubbled out through what must be a bad o-ring on the liquid line.

I'm hoping it won't be a b**ch to clean out! I am concerned about trying to open the drain plug on the chest freezer, and hope I may just be able to auto-siphon it out into a brew bucket...

Any other thoughts on cleaning? It will be BEYOND impossible to simply tip up the freezer unit...

 

[passedpawn]

I'm hoping it won't be a b**ch to clean out! I am concerned about trying to open the drain plug on the chest freezer, and hope I may just be able to auto-siphon it out into a brew bucket...

Any other thoughts on cleaning? It will be BEYOND impossible to simply tip up the freezer unit...

Wet vac will suck it dry in about 30 seconds.

I've had this miserable experience guys. I only lost about half the keg though - somehow I didn't fully seat the liquid side and it dripped all night I guess. My freezer is on my back patio, so I can just pull the drain and hose it out.

Aren't these threads always more fun with pics?