CO2 leek?

[Cain Harland]

I have carbonated 4 kegs and dispensed probably 2 plus pushed about 1/3 of a keg of sanitizer out of each of the 4 before filling and my 2kg fire extinguisher is empty is this to be expected or do I have a leek somewhere in my gas lines?

[Cain Harland]

So I just went and disconnected everything to stop the beer I have in the kegerator going flat and the disconnect got stuck on the post and while wiggling it off I noticed the post was moving, turns out it wasn't screwed in very tight so I think that's the problem.

[Dave]

Get a small bottle of starsan, mix up in a spray bottle and use as a leak checker every time you hook up a keg. There is a foaming additive in it so it blows bubbles if you have even the smallest leak. Great to spray onto the beer posts to clean them too! A small bottle will last you years using it like this.

[Cain Harland]

Is starsan significantly better than iodophore for such things?

[Dave]

I don't think iodophore has a foaming agent, so won't blow bubbles.

[Cain Harland]

New problem I think I located and fixed the leak and I have new gas hooked up but now every thing I pour is foam. Either slow foam or fast foam depending on the pressure. Any ideas?

[Dave]

Could be overcarbonation - how did you carbonate, pressures and temperatures?

Could be the length of your serving lines (ie. from keg to tap)

Could be temperature related to taps (have you got a tap tower or standard through door taps)?

[Cain Harland]

Set and for get carbonation 12psi 6c degrees. 3m of  0.17" ID 1/4" OD  LDPE beer line.

Since I got the CO2 refill I have been closing the valve on the bottle over night to be sure the system is holding pressure and a couple of times I've opened it again and the regulator has been wide open. Is that normal? does a regulator need pressure to maintain its setting and I just need to reset it each time I open and close the bottle?

If the regulator is the issue and I have over carbonated does any one have any tips about letting some of the carbonation off with out over doing it and flattening the beer. I don't have a spunding valve.

[Dave]

The regulator should hold it's setting with pressure off.  The temp / pressure looks good (similar to what I use).

Beerline length I'm not sure, I have got flow control taps so don't worry about that.

To drop the carbonation level you can disconnect the gas from the keg, then let the pressure out of the keg.  If you don't have a manual pull relief valve on the keg, you can press down the poppet on the gas in post (make sure you don't push down the beer one by mistake - big mess!!!)

Do this every few hours and it should do the trick.  Not sure how many times it will take, depends on how heavily carbonated you are (if that's the problem)

If you can measure the pressure, it will give you an idea if you have over-carbonated, and also when you are back down to a suitable level.  Do you have a shutoff valve after the regulator?  And a non return valve?

[Cain Harland]

My kegs do have the pull relief valves. I'm pretty sure the ball valves in my distributor have non return valve build in because if I purge one keg the rest seem to keep their pressure and when I had the problem the keg with the suspected leak went a little flat while the others turned fizzy .While I'm fiddling with all this I turn them all off at the manifold.

I just thought that may be the reg isn't loosing its setting and the low pressure gauge just behaves a bit funny while the gas is rushing through it and it would settle at its set point once the system equalized.