
For the most part, checking for keg liquid and CO2 leaks is pretty straightforward. Is beer leaking? Then you’ve got a liquid leak. Is there six inches of beer in your kegerator? That one’s really easy to spot. If beer is shooting out like a geyser, you’ve got a… fast leak. 🙂
For kegerator CO2 leaks, it’s a generally a little more work, but still pretty easy… spray everything with Star San solution (diluted of course) and look for bubbles.
A problem spot. There is one place on the CO2 side that the soak-everything-with-Star-San method doesn’t really work…. the keg’s gas post. Testing at this point using the spray bottle method is impossible (or at the very least difficult and messy). Unless your poppet is messed up, leaks will only surface here when a gas QD is actually engaged. The problem is, you can’t easily see that spot when a QD on. Stated more simply, you need a QD on to see if it’s leaking, but you can’t see it if a QD is on.
Enter what I call the “pressure gauge method”. The pressure gauge method can check the entire keg including gas QD connection and any connected tubing without soaking everything and the resulting clean up.
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