I just opened my keezer to pour a beer and realized that it froze sometime between last night and now. I don't know how. My Johnson controls thermostat is still set around 45 but everything inside is frozen. I have two kegs in there, each 3/4 full, and a 10lb co2 tank. What do I do? Are the kegs likely to split? If so, how do I avoid that?
The thermometer I keep in the keezer reads zero Farenheight. I suspect the thermostat is broken but how do I save the kegs and the co2tank?
I'm not familiar with the JC thermostat but maybe you have it set to cut in at the set point (Heat) instead of cut out (cool)?
CO2 tank will be fine. The co2 inside under pressure is already way colder than freezing. I suspect the kegs will be fine too. Just thaw them out and pressure test them before using them again.
If I remember my tenth grade biology, it is a negative feedback device. It allows the freezer to work as long as the temp is above where I set it. Once the temp falls to the temp I set, it turns the freezer off.
no worries. the kegs can hold a lot of pressure. you just need to remove them from the freezer and allow to thaw. do not vent the gas. frozen liquid won't hold much gas, so the previously dissolved CO2 is now all in the headspace. if you vent the gas you will just have to re-carbonate the beer. allow the liquid beer to sit for a week or so and all the gas will be reabsorbed. check your probe. if it is damaged it will not respond accurately and this can cause the appliance to run too long. and of course be sure you have programmed the thing correctly. the CO2 tanks is fine. the gas temp will of course be the same as everything else inside (not colder and not warmer...) there is a very remote danger of explosion if you heat the CO2 tank too much, beyond 130F if i recall. but cold temps reduce will reduce the pressure. your CO2 tank is fine. Cheers.
uh, no it's not. the gas is exactly the same temperature as the inside of the kegerator. it's not magic. nothing changes unless there is a change of phase. gas to liquid or liquid to gas. simple.
Biology is the study of living things. I wonder if your kegs are completely froze, or if the lines just froze. I have that happen sometimes when I get the lines too far down into the keezer with a session beer. Anyway, unplug your JC and give it a minute. Go back through the programming and make sure everything is where you want it. Make sure your probe is in the right place too.
An aside to the topic at hand..... why do you set your keezer to 45F for serving? Definitely a temperature I prefer drinking at, but not a good temperature for minimizing foam and/or maintaining carbonation levels....
I suspect that I had it set closer to 40. However, I may have recently turned the thermostat up a few degrees. I have a stout in there now and I like to drink my stouts a little bit warmer.
As a followup, I took the opportunity to empty out the keezer, spray it down with bleach solution, and wipe it out. The beer lines were frozen, as were the contents of the kegs. I had a couple of cans of soda in there. They distorted (the ends went convex) but thankfully didn't burst. I also had a few cans of Murphy's stout that didn't distort at all and poured just fine after I let them defrost. I had at least one bottle of wine which froze and pushed the cork half-way out of the bottle. I reset the thermostat to about 40F, put a few bottled beers in there and it seems to be maintaining temperature as it should. I don't know what caused the problem. I'll probably invest in a new thermostat.
