Beer in Gas Line....Son of a B.....

[chicanuck]

Merry Christmas to all the Brewnoser's out there.

Made another stupid mistake this morning on this beer making road. I kegged a high ABV Belgian Dubbel in August with the plan of having it as a cozy Christmas break beer. I only have two taps at home that are always in use, so I generally force carb at 40-42F for 60-90 secs at 30 PSI, rest at 40-42F for 24 hours, release pressure, re-pressure to ~10 psi and store in the basement at ~54-56F.

Yeah well......I guess I forgot to release the 30psi on this keg back in August, I attached the gas line this morning and the beer violently shot up the gas line, as I quickly detached the ball lock I also got a nice Dubbel shower in the process....smells pretty good now in my kitchen, so it is all all bad. I do have a check value on my regulator, I have taken apart all the gas lines (single regulator with a t split for two lines) and they are currently soaking in Starsan to be re-assembled later today. Two questions on the next step:

1) Do I need to clean any further then the check value, as I would really rather not take apart the regulator?

2) Should I leave the keg in the fridge at 42F and de-gas the keg from the relief valve until no more gas comes out before re-attaching the CO2? I just tried to de-gas with the relief valve and got more beer coming out, so it is pretty agitated right now. After no more gas is being released from the relief valve, I assume I can just re-attach the CO2 and set to serving pressure......and Bob's your uncle?

Good times and Happy Holiday's.

- chicanuck

[GAM]

!. You shouldn't need to But you can take off the one way valve and check with a paper towel.

2. Pour off a glass or 2 (of foam) and get the volume below the gas in post. You can try to tilt the keg but it's awkward.

Sandy

[mr x]

It may take a long time to pour right if it's overcarbed. If you want to drink it this week, you may need to get it as cold as possible, and turn up the serving pressure with a much longer line length.

[RubberToe]

Don't even fuckin talk to me about beer in the gas line. I just dumped money into an 8 way and 2 way manifolds with check valves because I keep doing various stupid things.

Well I just did it again today, on my 2 way high pressure one, set to like 38 psi because I want to drink my beer now, damnit. I had my oatmeal stout and ordinary bitter on it. Well I want to give the bitter a little shake so I disconnect the stout, well, because I learned my lesson, right? Wrong! I give the bitter some light shakes, literally only enough to hear some hiss of co2 going through the system. I look over and I can see beer bubbling through the gas line. Fuck. Me. Again. At least it didn't go into the manifold. I just set up these manifolds yesterday and sanitised everything with alcohol, even took apart my ball lock fittings. Crimped on connections too, lol.

So what I'm saying is, I feel your pain. You just gotta go by the book and leave it alone or double triple check everything, make sure you disconnect and then off gas before you do anything.

[chicanuck]

Thankfully it was not over carbed, just way over pressured. Replaced all the gas lines and cleaned all the connections, been releasing the pressure over the last 2 days. Poured off a good two pints of foam, re-set everything at 4-6psi, crossed my fingers and poured......

It is a Christmas miracle and my first Dubbel tastes pretty good at 9% ABV, a little yeasty and lacks any real hop bite but I am happy with the result.....thanks to Dave at Everwood for the recipe and my wife for the kick ass book for X-mas.

- chicanuck


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