Keg Failure Batch Losses - Weigh In Please

1) Approximately 60 batches

2) Never lost a full batch - had one leak slowly for a few days, probably lost a pint, replaced liquid post, fixed it, One leaked gas through lid, lost some gas, then replaced lid, beer not ruined.Then just two weeks ago a leaky PRV drained the rest of a 20lb CO2 tank

Once oxidized a batch of NEIPA by not leaving it on gas, lid became unseated and leaked. Dumped that one.

My kegs are more of a threat to my CO2 bottles than anything else it seems...

 

Kegged batches: ~10 (I started kegging about a year ago)
Batches lost: 0 so far

I have lost 2 CO2 cylinders though - I've hopefully learned my lesson on checking my hose connections.

 

Probably kegged 3 or 4 hundred batches over the past 27 years of kegging-I've lost 3. All of them were massive, time consuming beers to brew and age, never a damn 6% pale ale. One batch of Imperial stout was lost to a faulty o-ring, since then I replace both post orings with every batch. I lost a nearly full keg of brett hefeweizen (and a tank of CO2)when a cat went to sleep on top of the kegerator and opened the tap. A system of bungee cords fixed that. And a drunk at a party left the tap open on a keg of dopplebock-hard to fix that kind of problem and keep friends.

 

And none to infection.

 

I have kegged about 100 batches over the past 9 years and only had one incident where I lost a few gallons to a fault picnic tap.

 

About 30 batches since I began kegging. Haven’t lost any to a keg part failure. Have lost a few pints to the handle being pulled when it shouldn’t have been.

 

Yep, operator error - I seated the lid with 20 psi or so, threw it in the ferm chamber to store , and of course as it chilled it lost pressure.

 

1) Approximately how many batches have you kegged?
Maybe 50?

2) How many batches have you lost due to keg failure?
None that I can remember. Had some ciders go off, because of bees and fruit flies in the primary but not any beers I can recall.

I have 11 kegs and a box of parts, so I can get after it pretty quickly.

 

1) probably 30 to 40 batches kegged
2) zero due to true keg failure. I have dumped 1 due to clogged dip tubes which in fixing them lead to oxidation in my NEIPA. So it wasn't really keg failure, more my poor handling of hops.

 

50 kegged batches to date. Lost one to a failed poppet on the liquid post during carbonation- 5 gallons of imperial stout at the bottom of the keezer. That was a painful discovery.

 

200+ probably at this point

Had two slowly leak while away due to faulty/old poppet (actually have one now doing a similar thing so I’ve got a party tap hooked up to it permanently while it’s carbonating)

Had a couple where I tried some random keep hopping experiments that ended up plugging the dip tube.

Had a few overcarbed foam bombs in the beginning.

 

1) 90
2) 0*

*Unless you include 1 kegged batch lost due to picnic tap leakage. Probably not a good idea to leave these on kegs when not serving for extended periods. Wet-vaccing several gallons of beer from my chest freezer was not a brewing career highlight.

 

Depends how far back you want to go, but for the last 10 years I kegged ~200 batches and had two losses due to a faulty keg post .

The first time a liquid post had a slow leak and over a few days the entire keg drained and filled the bottom of my keezer. The second time I caught it and only lost a small amount of beer. I think I have it under control now. :-) So I guess really lost more like 1.8 batches.

 

Since I printed this question.

1. Kegged probably 250 batches, some were 10 gallons, so two kegs, as I don't have a 10 gallon corny.

2. Lost one due to a defective poppet. The rubber seal ring was deformed. Replaced poppet once the beer was lost. That was a 10 gallon batch, so I didn't lose it all.

I have 38 kegs IIRC. All ball lock, but some are different makes or versions. All except for 2 were bought used.

 

Change 1) to 105. I misremembered what year I started legging.

 

And I thought I was the only one ... picnic taps should come with an electronic leak detector ...

1. Only estimate is a shit-load
2. A wit that escaped a $3 picnic tap, an IPA who's dh bag split and fouled the diptube which required multiple cleanings with oxidation to follow ($1 bag ruined $12 of hops). Leaky gas posts have cost me some CO2 but all beers were recoverable.

My beers regularly see the inside of more than one keg. All my dh'ing (~40% of my brews) is done in a keg then jumped to a serving keg. Whenever I transport a keg the beer is jumped to a fresh traveler. When I need the space I'll transfer the the remnants of a 5'er to a 3 gal keg to optimize space in the keezer.

If VikeMan is trying to correlate safety of kegging versus bottling I feel the keg will be a clear winner (even before this poll). My bottling has had random "oops" over the years while the kegs are much more reliable and I think serve a better product. Not to be ignored is the ability to control oxygen and the ~1/2 ounce of dregs that are tossed from a bottle . . . it adds up.