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Date: 22 Aug 2006 05:36:22
From: Adam Preble
Subject: Baby's first kegging experience -- why is it dripping on my head?!?!?!
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I finally got a CO2 tank today and started towards pressurizing my two 5
gallon batches of American pilsener. It was advised on the NG that I
give them a little carbonation during the lager phase because corney
kegs aren't airtight at room pressure. This got me into kegging much
earlier than I wanted; I was using the kegs since I can fit both of them
in my kegerator (as opposed to only one carboy).
I discovered the fittings are all nice quick release things, and that I
just pop on a fitting and push down to open the air up. I tested with
sanitized water first and things seemed OK. A few fittings needed a
little fiddling but they eventually held true without any hissing.
I racked into the kegs and began to pressurizing in the kitchen. When I
began to fill one keg with air, beer spontaneously erupted out the other
end. I jiggled the fitting about until it came loose. Of course, the
geyser continued unabated until pressure equalized. At this point I
could only wonder why I wasn't only feeling beer hitting my face, but
also the back of my head. It was a glorious geyser that graced my
kitchen ceiling.
This reminded me of some crappy fittings I had for my air compressor, so
I reached for the teflon taped and reinforced the fidgety fittings.
After moving the gig over to the bathtub, I gave it another go and it
worked out fine. I have no idea if I thoroughly carbonated the beer,
but that wasn't the point. I was just trying to main a seal for the
lager.
I assume once I crash cool, I'll have to test the fittings again. The
rough test is if I disengage the master clamp, the plug shouldn't come
loose. Chances are that at the lower temperature, I might need a little
more CO2. Hopefully I don't get a geyser in the kegerator...
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Date: 22 Aug 2006 14:35:37
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: Baby's first kegging experience -- why is it dripping on my head?!?!?!
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On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:36:22 GMT, <rockobonaparte@hotmail.com > wrote:
> I racked into the kegs and began to pressurizing in the kitchen. When I
> began to fill one keg with air, beer spontaneously erupted out the other
> end. I jiggled the fitting about until it came loose. Of course, the
> geyser continued unabated until pressure equalized. At this point I
> could only wonder why I wasn't only feeling beer hitting my face, but
> also the back of my head. It was a glorious geyser that graced my
> kitchen ceiling.
Yeah, that can happen sometimes. If the poppet is just not sitting right
sometimes you can push it in a bit and wiggle it, then release it and it
will seal (BTW, release the pressure first, otherwise you'll just spray
more beer). However, it's also possible that it is gunked up with beer/soda
residue and something is blocking it from sealing. This especially happens
with kegs that you just bought and haven't used yet. They're not always
the cleanest things when you first get them. Whenever I clean my kegs, and
especially the first time, I like to unscrew the QD posts from the keg
and soak them in cleaner. I'm not 100% sure about ball lock posts, but with
the pin locks that I have you can remove the poppet from the post and clean
it seperately. There's a tiny little oring gasket that sits on the
poppet which is what seals the QD closed. If it's got gummy soda or beer
residue on it, it might not be sitting right.
If you notice that the oring on the poppet is damaged, you can buy extra
poppets seperately and replace them. I've got a couple kegs that have
flaky seals in the QDs, but usually I can work around it by wiggling them
some.
> I assume once I crash cool, I'll have to test the fittings again. The
> rough test is if I disengage the master clamp, the plug shouldn't come
> loose. Chances are that at the lower temperature, I might need a little
> more CO2. Hopefully I don't get a geyser in the kegerator...
You'll probably have to add more CO2 over time. For example, if you just hit
the keg with 10 PSI to seal the lid, even though the pressure is relatively
high there really isn't much volume of gas in the headspace initially. Over
time that gas will absorb into the beer and the pressure in the headspace
will drop back down again. You'll only get it to stay pressurized when
the pressure in the beer has equalized with the pressure in the hedspace...
IE when the beer is carbonated. Personally, I'd just lager the keg
fully carbonated. It should not effect the lagering at all, and will
ensure that the keg lid stays sealed.
John.
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Date: 22 Aug 2006 18:45:38
From: Dick Adams
Subject: Re: Baby's first kegging experience -- why is it dripping on my head?!?!?!
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<rockobonaparte@hotmail.com > wrote:
> I racked into the kegs and began to pressurizing in the kitchen. When I
> began to fill one keg with air, beer spontaneously erupted out the other
> end. I jiggled the fitting about until it came loose. Of course, the
> geyser continued unabated until pressure equalized. At this point I
> could only wonder why I wasn't only feeling beer hitting my face, but
> also the back of my head. It was a glorious geyser that graced my
> kitchen ceiling. .....
This the common keg problem. My solution is to hit an empty
keg with 10 psi while it is covered with soapy water. Look
for leaks and tighten as needed.
Dick
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