HELP!!! Kegging Disasters!

1. Did you fill the CO2 tank after you recieved it?
2. Some regulators have a shutoff valve between the regulator and the gas line. Make sure it is open.

As long as you purged the headspace and the keg is sealed your beer is fine so no need to panick. Take a step back, lay off the homebrew for a minute and solution will come to you.

edit: this coming from someone who has beer dispensing at a drizzel because the co2 is running out

 

If you pulled the release valve on the keg and no CO2 came out, meaning there's no pressure in the keg, then you didn't "pump a shit load of CO2" into the beer.

When you first applied CO2 to the keg did you hear gas flowing into the keg? If the answer is yes, did it flow and then slow to a stop, or did it keep flowing? Does the high pressure guage on the regulator indicate that there is still CO2 in the tank?

 

Press the pressure relief valve (ball lock) or the gas in post (pin lock) to see if any gas actually made itself into the keg. Did you hear gas flow when initially carbonating? If not, verify that your tank has CO2, as noted above. Double check all the gas connections. Don't worry, your beer is safe for the moment. Put the keg in the fridge while you puzzle this out (because you are on the scene, only you can really figure out what's going on). If all else fails, you can prime in the keg but that probably won't be necessary once you check everything closely.

edit: I'm pretty behind the curve here; nevermind. But I'm confident you'll figure it out.

 

When you say you "confirmed there was at one time CO2," how did you confirm that? What did the high pressure gauge read? What was the weight of the tank?

 

Had this happen once the seals wasn't sealing. as a result i woke the next morning to no CO2 or carbonated beer I refilled my cO2. tank and sprayed the keg with sanitizer and found the leak.simple replacement of a diptube seal find I was good to go. now I always pressurized my tanks when stored and if isn't pressurized at time of fill I investigate further. Kegging at first is a little overwhelming because of the maintainance but once you get it its great hood luck

 

This happened to me once also. My problem was a new regulator that was leaking from the guage.

 

Raise the temp of an 'empty' CO2 tank by 5 degrees, and it will hiss when you open the valve. That doesn't tell you that there's a useful amount of CO2 in the tank. What did the high pressure gauge read?

 

Generally if I crank up the PSI enough and try to make it as quiet as possible, the leak is easy to find.

 

I dumped a whole tank of CO2 in short order with my first cheapo regulator. Eventually switched to Micromatic and haven't had a problem since.

Refill the tank, make your connections, crank the PSIs up, and spray every connection/joint with Starsan solution. If you really dumped 5 lbs in 2 hours, this is going to be an easy leak to find.

 

Enough answers here, but I will re-iterate that you do not need to bottle it. If you leave the keg alone it should be fine, especially if you left the keg shut. Have you opened the keg?

 

I like to use a soapy water solution to check for leaks. I have a couple kegs that I need to put a little more pressure to get them sealed but later I can back off the pressure and it stays sealed. I have also gone through a full tank over night. I keep three tanks just in case!

 

The places I've seen a lot of first time setups go wrong:

• The regulator is only hand tight to the CO2 bottle.
• The gas fitting is just a little loose (between the hose and the QD)
• The barb for the QD is loose
• The lid never properly seats
• Either the gas or liquid posts aren't tight

#1 place though - no fiber/plastic washer between the tank and the regulator. Some regulators have a sort of permanent washer inside the female connection, but if you have just bare metal to metal, you'll dump all your CO2 without realizing it.

 

And just in case you didnt know, Pipe Thread Tape is a good thing to have when kegging. Always keep some on hand.

 

Pipe Thread Tape is virtually useless on most of the connections in a typical home setup. If I'm not mistaken, the nipples connecting the regulators to each other and the connections on your CO2 manifold are the only places you're likely to find tapered threads (NPT), and there's seldom a reason to touch those. These are not particularly prone to leaking - though I wouldn't skip those when testing for leaks.

 

I guess it is handy for mine, because I use lots of MFL connections. I still say is probably good to keep on hand when dealing with Gas, but might not be needed.

 

Thread tape doesn't do anything for an MFL connection. The threads aren't the mated surface that counts.