Keg losing carbonation/gas bottle issues.

[Rocker1986]

Hi guys,

I have a question, which I think I've probably already answered myself but thought I'd get some other opinions.

So, I poured a glass of my IPA earlier, which has been in the keg for a number of weeks now. Last glass from it I had on Saturday I think, and it was pretty well carbonated. Tonight though, it had lost some carbonation. It wasn't flat, but it wasn't as fizzy, and also there wasn't much foaming initially on the pour, which rarely happens in this weather with properly carbed beer. Nothing has been disconnected or moved or anything inside or outside the fridge.

I have a Micromatic regulator; on it, the low pressure gauge is still sitting at serving pressure, and the high pressure gauge that measures the gas bottle itself, is sitting in the “Gas End” range on the dial. It hasn't completely reached the bottom but it is in the red zone on the gauge.

The confusing part is, I have a fresh keg of red ale in there that is nowhere near where the carb level it should be by now, but a soda water keg which appears to have held its carbonation. I also took the disconnect off the spare line and turned its valve on momentarily and gas came rushing out the line. So basically I don't know if the bottle is empty or something is wrong with the keg lid seals or what. Never had these problems with kegs losing carbonation before I switched to a manifold and had a leak which drained about half of the bottle unfortunately. Said leak has been fixed now, though, so I'm tempted to replace the bottle anyway since it's just about done, and see if that is what the issue is.

Any ideas? :unsure: It's my first gas bottle so I'm not entirely sure of the indicators of an empty bottle aside from no pressure in it or whatever.

 

[Tropico]

When I connected a 4 way gas line manifold with check values (Keg King variety) I felt the same thing happened.

I figured it must have been a pressure drop across the check valves. So I upped the pressure at the regulator 3 or 4 psi and it seemed to fix the problem.

I'm happy again with the same sparkling beer.

 

[Rocker1986]

Hmm, interesting. I might try this and see how that goes over the next couple of days.

 

[Beamer]

My money is on the gas bottle being pretty much empty. I had a similar problem about a month ago, replaced the gas bottle and bingo, everything back to normal

 

[Rocker1986]

My suspicion is the gas bottle given where the needle is on the high pressure gauge, i.e. just about empty. I should note that prior to the leak being discovered, I had a keg of SNPA on that line which also failed to carbonate properly in the first week - the same line and disconnect that the red ale is on now. It was this valve on the manifold that was leaking but that has been rectified now and there are no leaks in the system.

At first I thought it might have been the keg lid seal, but this red ale keg is a different one to that one and showing the same issue so far. Maybe something wrong with that disconnect itself. The SNPA keg did carbonate properly after the second week though, after I'd bled it and reset the lid, and this was before I found the leak.

Still doesn't explain why the IPA keg has lost carbonation.. I think I'll come back to this tomorrow, it's too late to be thinking about all this shit right now. :lol:

 

[lael]

Where was the leak on the manifold and how did you fix it? A friend might be having the same problem.

 

[Rocker1986]

It was out of the thread on one of the ball valves, I found it by spraying it with soapy water and seeing bubbles being created at that point. I took the valve out and put thread tape on it then covered the thread in silicone before putting it back into the manifold. I noticed at the time that the particular valve had been tightened one full extra turn into the thread than the other 3 for some reason so I don't know if this was the issue. However, the silicone fixed it.

 

[Blind Dog]

Just be careful when removing the valves from the manifold as the manifold can be fairly fragile - I've sheared more than one trying to fix leaks

So, I poured a glass of my IPA earlier, which has been in the keg for a number of weeks now. Last glass from it I had on Saturday I think, and it was pretty well carbonated. Tonight though, it had lost some carbonation. It wasn't flat, but it wasn't as fizzy

I reckon you had a now forgotten moment of inspiration, realised that fizzy beer is intended solely for megaswill drinking lesser mortals and not for your refined ipa attuned taste buds, and turned the reg down.

 

[Rocker1986]

Fair enough. It was ok this time, and most likely won't have to have any more done to it now. All the threads have been sealed up with silicone.

:lol: Nah didn't touch the reg, I don't have my beer as fizzy as megaswill but I do prefer it more fizzy than last night's glass was. It's probably carbed in the keg about the same level as megaswill but by the time it gets to the glass it is down more to a level that I enjoy. I have FC taps and don't discard the first part of the pour, so this flat beer mixes with the higher carbed beer in the glass and settles down at a nice level. Was just a bit too down last night..

 

[contrarian]

Normally a CO2 tank will hold a very consistent pressure until it is basically empty, once the high side starts to drop it is close to being finished.

It's well worth spraying all of your connections with some soapy water as even a small leak can empty a tank fairly quickly.

 

[Rocker1986]

Thanks. It seems the likely culprit is a near empty CO2 bottle, as it is showing that on the reg anyway. The connections were sprayed about 2 weeks ago and a leak found which has since been fixed, haven't had any problems with carbonation or running out of gas since then, until now of course - but the thing appears to be nearly empty anyway. Apparently you can get about 30 kegs out of a 6.8kg bottle and I know I haven't got anywhere near that many through it yet so there was definitely a leak there, which only appeared once the manifold was installed. Makes sense I guess since the leak was in the manifold

 

[Tropico]

You will still get a pressure drop across your manifold if it has check valves:

One important note: Your regulator gauge may not read the pressure your kegs are really at because of the pressure drop across check valves that may (should) be in your carbon dioxide lines. Installing a check valve at each carbon dioxide outlet prevents cross pressurization and contamination. I have seen about 2 psi pressure drop across each check valve. I have one at the regulator output and one at each output from my gas manifold (see Figure 1). This means that I must set my regulator to 16 psi to get 12 psi at my kegs (16 psi - 4 psi = 12 psi). Your systems may vary.

 

[GalBrew]

Thanks. It seems the likely culprit is a near empty CO2 bottle, as it is showing that on the reg anyway. The connections were sprayed about 2 weeks ago and a leak found which has since been fixed, haven't had any problems with carbonation or running out of gas since then, until now of course - but the thing appears to be nearly empty anyway. Apparently you can get about 30 kegs out of a 6.8kg bottle and I know I haven't got anywhere near that many through it yet so there was definitely a leak there, which only appeared once the manifold was installed. Makes sense I guess since the leak was in the manifold

Even when your gas bottle is 'in the red' you would be amazed how much gas is left in it. So long as you aren't leaking gas it should last a while.

 

[Rocker1986]

Wonder why it causes a drop in pressure. Anyway the manifold I have does have check valves, or at least it was advertised to have. I bumped up the reg a few PSI last night so I'll pour one later when I'm home again and see if it's improved any in that time.

 

[Rocker1986]

Even when your gas bottle is 'in the red' you would be amazed how much gas is left in it. So long as you aren't leaking gas it should last a while.

Yes definitely no gas leaks now. If the bumping up the pressure a bit as advised above fixes the issue then I'll obviously hold off on replacing the bottle until it is completely empty.

Going by that regulator scale, it has about 200PSI left in it, and it started somewhere around 1000 when it was full.

 

[contrarian]

Serving 30 kegs or carbing them up as well? It makes a fair difference! Anecdotally without counting mine seem to last around a year if there are no leaks!

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah, I was told about a year as well. I can't remember if it was carbing and serving or just serving, but pretty sure it was carbing and serving.

 

[Digga]

30 kegs seems alot for carbing and serving! I might have to triple triple check my system i did find when i moved one of my JG fitted quick disconnects it did leak so ive just been turning that reg off every time im not using it.

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah I'm not sure, but I know before I had the manifold I'd probably had 6-8 kegs through it, carbed and served, plus cleaning duties, and the pressure on the high gauge had hardly moved. I will have to count them when I get a new gas bottle, but in any case it certainly hasn't lasted anywhere near a year. I bought it in August.

I bumped the regulator up a few PSI last night and tried another glass of the IPA tonight. It wasn't fully carbonated but it was better than last night so I'll test it out again tomorrow night and see how it goes. Perhaps it was indeed an issue with those check valves dropping the pressure in the kegs for some reason. This could take a bit of tinkering to get it right, don't really want the beers over carbonated.

 

[Tropico]

check valves dropping the pressure

I think its called "crack pressure". Increasing the pressure will take some time to bring the carbonation up, just like connecting an uncarbed keg at serving pressure, takes a week or two

You should also plan on getting a full gas bottle too.

Edit: Ooops "cracking pressure'