Hi all, I have a Summit kegerator - was a bit of a learning curve as I wasn't here when it was all set up but thought I had a pretty good handle on it all. I am on probably my fifth or sixth half keg and about a week ago noticed the pressure of the pour was significantly down. I have been crazy busy so I haven't had time to mess with it. The beer tasted just fine, it just took longer to pour, which wasn't a big deal for the beer or two I was having at the time. Yesterday I decided to look into it and noticed the psi was all the way down. I thought the pressure might be low because of the weak pour, but I hadn't touched the regulator so I wasn't sure why the psi would be down at all. I also was briefly concerned I was somehow out of co2, but figured that couldn't be the case since the beer was still pouring (is that accurate?). I cranked up the psi and it started pouring much better, but noticed the beer tastes awful. Is the keg that I have in there now done because there was no (or very little) co2 for such a long time? I thought I read somewhere a while ago that if your co2 runs out, the beer might taste bad but once you have co2 hooked back up to it, after a while it will restore the taste of the beer, any truth to that? Or am I misremembering? Thank you in advance for your responses.
if you have a two gauge regulator, one gauge will tell you the pressure applied to the beer. it changes when you adjust the pressure. leave it at 10 or 11 psi for now. it should not change. if it does something is screwy. the other gauge will read around 800 psi or so, depending on temperature. that's the gas pressure in the CO2 cylinder. it will not change much either, until you are out of CO2. then it will read 0. the regulator allows 800 psi gas to flow out at 10 psi. it regulates the flow of gas. check both gauges. they will tell you whats going on. it sounds like your regulator was not applying enough pressure to the beer. the beer will slowly lose carbonation with each pour. it will also pour slower each time since the dispensed gas is not being replaced with new CO2 gas. that is what a regulator does, it regulates the flow of gas always keeping 10 psi applied. to maintain carbonation but also to push the liquid out of the tank. if you let the keg sit at a steady psi it will reabsorb gas and it will go back to normal. but you may have a screwy regulator or screwy gauge. not uncommon at all. CO2 is acidic. it changes the flavor of beer. it also helps to release aroma. flat beer does taste different than carbonated beer. not bad, but certainly worse. "bad" keg beer will have a sour flavor, and you will know it. keg beer can go bad if it is left warm for too long; keep keg beer cold, always. the stuff isn't milk but it really needs to be kept cold. if you have a bad keg all bets are off. cut your losses. hope this helps. Cheers.
You were pouring with the carbonation in the keg pushing the beer through. Your keg should be fine once you hook up another full co2 tank it just might take awhile to balance. If it was "off" you'd probably be more worried about possible oxidation, but that shouldn't be an issue. You need a refill on your tank anyways so you don't have much to lose. Overall, I think it'll be fine.
