Odd leak from keg under pressure

[ksavage15]

Wondering if someone can confirm my suspicions. Bought a new korny from my lhbs as I have twice before. Racked my brew into it and hit it with gas about 30 psi and proceeded to shake keg. Burped the keg. Put about 25 psi on it overnight. Tonight went to check on keg and there was beer up a bit into the gas line. I had heard of this before and made note to fix and clean or replace line. Burped keg and beer receded into tank. Went to adjust back to 25 psi and beer started to foam out a bit from in line post area. I am thinking I need a new seal/ gasket for the in post. Is this accurate? I dropped the psi until no leakage visible and my larger question is do I need to immediately rack beer to something else and fix to avoid air contamination to beer or can it sit at apparent " equilibrium" . I don't want to lose this beer! Worked too hard on it. Any help greatly appreciated.


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[day_trippr]

Assuming you've already verified the posts are tight, the beer will be fine while you fetch a set of O-rings. If the leak was at the base of a post with no QD attached, you'll want to inspect/replace the small O-ring under the dip tube flange.

btw, I'm hoping the beer wasn't already chilled when you were shaking it at 30psi...

Cheers!

 

[Dfwshane]

What happens if you shake a chilled keg at 30psi?

New to kegging and lost 5 gallons last night. I put 30 psi into 2 kegs, left gas line hooked up, chilled to 38 degrees, and after the 2nd day I attached liquid line, lowered to 10 psi and pulled off a few glasses to see how it was coming along. My first mistake was leaving the liquid line attached when raising the psi back to 30 for another day. I opened my freezer and all 5 gallons were lost and 5# co2 tank was empty. Any ideas where I lost the beer? I know the liquid line picnic tap I was using is not rated for 30 psi, but I don't think that is where it leaked-- it looked like it leaked from the gas side. I will try to attach a pic. Thanks in advance for helping me figure this out-- I am so bummed that I lost all 5 gallons.. at least I did a double brew day and have 5 gallons of an amber ale still in a keg. I completely cleaned the keg posts and lubed up all rubber seals prior to kegging-- also, fermentation was complete for a week before kegging.

 

[k1ngl1ves]

Hurry! Get a straw! A loooong straw!!!

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Get some more CO2, take the keg out and fill it with water, put about 50 PSI on it, and look for leaks.

If you don't see any on there, you can chance popping your picnic tap back on it, with pressure dropped to 30, and you might see your leak.

 

[day_trippr]

What happens if you shake a chilled keg at 30psi?[...]

You quickly end up with an over-carbed keg of beer.

If you're going to shake a keg to carb it the pressure should be set per the beer temperature. You could get away with shaking at 30psi if the beer was at 65°F and it'd end up with a typical 2.5 volume carbonation level. But do 30 psi at 35°F and the dissolved CO2 level will quickly reach an impossible-to-pour 4.5 volumes...

Cheers!

 

[pdietert]

If you lost all 5 gallons, it had to come up the dip tube on the liquid side

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Bam!

 

[seabass07]

If the nut on the picnic tap isn't quite tight enough, it'll leak at higher pressures. I hooked mine up to a freshly filled keg and upped the pressure. It didn't leak until I got above 25psi. I thought it might be defective, but realized that the nut wasn't very tight. Tightened it up and the leak stopped. Could be your problem or at least the simplest thing to check first.

 

[Dfwshane]

If you lost all 5 gallons, it had to come up the dip tube on the liquid side

The keg was almost completely empty, so you're saying it has to be the liquid side? If my picnic tap is the only thing to blame, then it is entirely my fault because I left them on at 30PSI. Take a look at the picture though, does it not look like the "mess" of beer is on the gas side?

Do you guys think that the leak could have been caused by a faulty poppet on the gas side? A slow leak in CO2, then when the tank was empty, the 30psi carbed beer forced its way out of the gas poppet. I think you can see in the photo above, most of the beer residue is from the gas side, not the liquid side. I will check my picnic taps as well though. I also plan on spending $2.99 on an o-ring gasket set and replacing all rubber parts and getting a new poppet valve for the gas side. Once installed, I am filling the keg with water and starsan and doing the same 30 psi force carb method and watching it closely for leaks with soapy water at all connections.
I am refilling my tank tomorrow, and it will read as "full," but what should the gauge on the co2 tank read when it cools down to 38 degrees inside my freezer? I have heard that it wont read "full" because it is colder, but I was curious if you guys had similar symptoms on the gauge when the tank is cold versus room temp.

On a side note: how do most of you maintain temperature in your keggerators? I have an extra carboy with water/starsan with a thermowell. Do you think that is accurate to what the keg/beer temp is? I leave the johnson controller on 38 degrees. Damn I ask a lot of questions.

I can't lose another 5 gallons of beer. It is too depressing.

Thank you all for the responses and sorry to Hijack your post ksavage15.

 

[seabass07]

Unless the keg is upside down, there's no way you can get 5gal of beer out of the gas side, unless you hooked up the gas poppet to the dip tube (not sure if it's possible). That combined with a messed up o-ring could cause a leak on the gas side.

 

[seabass07]

BTW, with a full keg under high pressure, I get a little bit of beer spraying out when I remove the gas ball lock connector. It's maybe half an ounce of beer, but enough to pool in the same spot that it is on the gas side in that pic.

 

[pdietert]

It also could have had multiple leaks, but if you lost a considerable amount of liquid, I would have had to come up the dip tube. There is no other way the liquid would come out of an upright keg.

 

[IslandLizard]

Make sure the short dip tube is on the gas side, and the long one on the liquid side.

Picnic taps can be unpredictable.

 

[Dfwshane]

Thanks for the help. I think it was the picnic tap under top high of pressure. The reason the gas side has all the beer residue on it was because that is where the picnic tap was sitting.

Working on converting my side by side-- can I do this with one Johnson controller? I want the freezer side to house kegs and the refrigerator side to keep bottles. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have looked through many many forums and can't find anyone that wants the same temperature in both sections of side by side.

 

[pdietert]

Working on converting my side by side-- can I do this with one Johnson controller? I want the freezer side to house kegs and the refrigerator side to keep bottles. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have looked through many many forums and can't find anyone that wants the same temperature in both sections of side by side.

I would see if you can open up a couple of holes between the fridge section and the freezer section one at the top and the other at the bottom. Make the holes big enough to put a computer fan on each and have one blow one direction and the other the opposite direction. Then keep the controller on the fridge side. This is just a theory.

 

[IslandLizard]

Most older side by sides have only one evaporator, in the freezer. A duct and fan cools the fridge side from there. Creating more passages or using a bigger fan can keep the temps closer on both sides. Be careful, there are probably coils in the separation wall.

Newer models have 2 individual evaporators each with their own thermostats (using one and the same compressor). You would need to rewire those if you want them to work properly. For example, you can insert an STC-1000 into each circuit.