I kegged 2 kegs of Brown Ale last week. I force carbed (shake, rattle & roll) @ 30psi for a couple minutes each. I just wanted to get enough CO2 on them so they could lay down for awhile for awhile. It’s 8.1%abv. I noticed the other day that I had a leak in one of them. I fixed it last night with a poppet from another keg. Then I attached the hose (12psi) to the other keg just to make sure it wasn’t leaking also and it took on quite a bit CO2. I sprayed them both with Starsan thinking they would bubble if I had a leak and nothing. Did I just lose some pressure through absorption? It’s been almost 3 years since I kegged a beer and for some reason it’s like starting over?
-J.K.L.
There might be a leak small enough for starsan to miss, or coming through a large enough opening (sometimes the “IN” fitting or pressure relief valve may be leaking slowly and it’s hard to get enough starsan on there to show it). But it could very well be the CO2 being absorbed by the beer. You’ll just have to keep an eye on it.
That would be my vote. A couple of minutes of “rockabye baby” does not bring the whole volume of CO2 into solution…not even by a long shot.
Take an old automobile or truck innertube and cut it twice so that you have
a cylinder of innertube 6-8 inches tall or so,
Stretch that over the outside of the top of your corney and work it down
around past the black phenolic hand holes and down onto the steel…
fill the keg with gas and the top of the keg thing with water and watch for bubbles
…this submerges the entire top of a keg and allows you to submerge all the fittings and the lid…
so EZ to spot any leakage.
Genius.