Regulator Woes

[gruntingfrog]

I just started kegging (got my fridge and equipment Saturday and racked to kegs Sunday), and I have an issue that I'm not sure if it's my regulator or just lack of skill on my part.

Here's what I did:

I used the shake method to carbonate, but never got the pressure above about 18 psi with the keg at about 45 degrees. I disconnected the gas and left the keg in the fridge overnight. Monday morning I hooked up the gas, set the regulator to 12 psi and when I got home from work that night, the needle was at 40 psi. I bled some pressure from the keg, set it to 12 psi again and today when I got home from work today, it was at 45-50 psi.

I know nobody is messing with it. Is there a trick or do I have a crappy regulator?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pjj2ba]

Does your regulator have a valve at its outlet? If so make sure it is open when you are adjusting your pressure. If it is not, when you then adjust the pressure, you would end up over adjusting. I'd loosen the adjustment bolt a whole lot and then release the pressure in the keg. When you loosen the bolt, you should not see much change in the pressure reading. This will only happen once you relieve the keg pressure. Once you've got the reading down to a couple of PSI or zero, adjust the pressure up a couple PSI.

Now go ahead and release the keg pressure. The regulator should drop some. When you close the release valve the pressure reading on the regulator should return to where it was set. Now that you are sure everthing is flowing properly, good ahead and adjust the pressure to where you want it. You should hear the gas flowing into the keg as you do this. Now if you still find the pressure slowly increasing, then yes, you've got a problem with the regulator. Hopefully someone else will chime in and comment on whether the creep problem can be fixed.

 

[gruntingfrog]

Pjj2ba, thanks for the advice.

I figured out what I was doing wrong and it was all my fault. I was turning the adjustment knob until the dial showed 12 psi, but I wasn't patient. Instead of turning the knob a small amount then waiting for the needle to slowly rise and settle itself then turning it some more, I was just turning the knob enough to get the needle to move quickly to 12 psi then walking away. Of course, I was actually turning it far enough to increase it to 40+ psi.

Lesson learned.