Some newbie kegging questions

[Matt in Birdham]

Quick question - is tape recommended on all kegging connections? (i.e. regulator and threaded gas-in posts). I haven't taped mine, but it doesn't appear that I have a leak (1 week in, more or less) but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

[Fil]

imho better safe ptfe is cheap and will ease tightening and loosening;)

I dont fully understand about the 12-11 psi, if the reg is set to 12psi and gas is turned on it should keep topping up as the pressure drops, your reg may just need to register a slightly lower drop before it opens up again?? if you sit and rock the keg to agitate it with the gas on you should hear a periodic hisss where the reg is maintaining the pressure and letting more co2 in as it gets absorbed by the beer.. or it might be that the topping up to the 12psi mark is slow for the last psi ?? try leaving it another hour and see if it normalises back @12?? I often find a reg i have set at X has crept up an extra psi or 2 after its been left a little while needing a slight knock back..

sounds like the leak is sorted, the way to check is the same as you check for leaks in a bike inner tube? tho dont submerge the regulator that would be bad but a trigger spray bottle with a weak washing up liquid or a starsan solution sprayed over suspect joints should bubble with a leak..
Just avoid putting sideways strain on JG fittings, if u need to negotiate a bend with the 3/8" line use a bent fitting..

sounds like your well on the way..

[NorthEastBrewer]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the leak is sorted, must have been the PRV.

The regulator is pretty much staying between 11psi and 12psi but it is odd that it is dropping. I generally need to increase the dial to push it back to 12psi when it does drop. At the moment, as it has only been conditioning at this pressure for 36 hours, i'm putting it down to the fact that I have also been pulling 'samples' off to try... quite a few samples.

The 4m line I had was too long for the pour. I had to dial up to 22psi in order to get a good flow therefore I pulled the line and cut it back to 1.5m. The result is almost perfect for 12psi serving pressure. If something happens, then I have 2.5m from the off cut which I can swap out. I'll probably buy some more beer line so I can mess about with it.

When I pour a beer, the pressure does equalize and more Co2 is pushed into the keg, the Co2 line is audibly hissing when the beer line is open so the regulator is definitely maintaining the pressure within the keg.

I think you are right in that the last 1psi stepping up to the max allowed low pressure - to 12psi - seems to be slow, but i'm certainly not complaining as my old regulator went up in increments of 4psi which made it neigh on impossible to get an accurate pressure output.

I hadn't thought of the submerging the keg idea for leaks! Great idea. I had been spraying the keg to check with soapy water but I wasn't having much luck... mainly because the PRV was enclosed and couldn't be seen. Hopefully I won't have any air escapes for a while so I don't have to troubleshoot this kind of thing. good to know though just in case.

Thanks for your help Fil.

Sorry Matt for accidently hijacking this thread - at least it's all kegging related!