4 months and out of gas!!!

[DJ]

Surely I have a leak?

I would assume that it would be somewhere between the bottle and the keg..

Maybe at one of the connections such as the splitter thing I have or the safety valve???

How can I check for such a thing???

[racer]

You can either spray soapy water on the joins, or if possible dunk it in the bath full of water.

[Trough Lolly]

It's possible to go through a bottle in 4 months if you have multiple kegs on tap, you force carbonate overnight with all of them and use CO2 to push beer around (eg, through filters enroute to the serving keg etc). It depends on how big your kegging setup is...

I agree that you may want to test for leaks with the sprayed soapy water method - I discover leaking keg poppets every time when I rack to my serving kegs and that saves me from having to re-carbonate flat kegs...

Cheers,
TL

[DJ]

I only have 2 kegs, one tap.. No filtering at all so I assume its a leak..

And I rekon its the safety valve.. Have sometimes heard a noise coming out of it whilst pouring..

[Trough Lolly]

DJ if you hear gas going through the reg when you're pouring a beer and you have the gas line connected to the keg and at pressure - that's perfectly normal. Your beer being displaced out of the keg will cause a flow into the keg.

If you hear a noise / hiss and there's no beer being poured and you've got stable pressure in the keg - you have a leak.

I have a (rented) gas bottle that hisses when I open the stopcock - it is a pain because it means I can't carbonate overnight - I'd lose the whole bottle easily and so far this bottle of gas has lasted nearly 18 months! I'm on vapour at the moment and once it's gone, I'm going mykegonlegs...

Cheers,
TL

[drsmurto]

And this is the reason i dont leave my bottle on when i am not pouring beer, even the smallest leak with cost you big and my first bottle lasted a tad over a month!

The best way to check this is to gas up your system and leave it for a few mins to reach equilibrium (assuming your kegs are already carbed etc). Now turn off the reg and walk away. After about 5 mins come back and look at the reg. Have the dials moved? There are times when mine can sit there for days without moving, other times they go to zero in less than 10 secs. If this happens, you have a leak. The system is so sensitive to the slightest movement of lines IMO. Because i fill bottles straight from the keg i disconnect gas in lines all the time and each time i reconnect the seal may be different. I replaced all the seals on the kegs but not the pressure release valve. On one of my kegs i know this doesnt seal properly all the time and i have to play around quite a bit to get it to sit just right. Part of the problem comes from swapping kegs with mates as some are older than others.. but i can deal with that as i get to taste beer i might not otherwise brew myself.

Cheers
DrSmurto

[Lucky Phils]

I guess I've been lucky, I 'm now on my third refill (down to 500psi at the moment) will need to refill soon, I always leave my gas connected. I'm using a 10kg bottle from Supagas and up to date has lasted 2 years. I just made sure with soapy water that there was no leaks and all of my 8 kegs seal tight.

Phil

[DJ]

found the leak!!

the bit the screws onto the fitting that connect to the keg has unscrwewed a little so gas was just pouring out...

Oh well, found it, fixed it and celebrated with a few that night...

[Trough Lolly]

Deja vu - it can happen to seasoned keggers too!

I racked my California Steam to the serving keg last night and set about the clean up. When I returned I noticed beer running down the side of the keg!

....it looks like a keg post screwed on only hand tight after cleaning doesn't work after all...
....only lost a few mls thank gawd...

Cheers,
TL