Alan's Brewery

Exploded Mini Keg

Recently, I have been finding that the beer foams really excessively when tapped from the mini keg. The foaming is marginally less when using the built-in tap on the keg than when using the CO2 dispensing tap. This week, one of my mini kegs exploded, ostensibly from a build up of CO2 from the priming sugar.


Exploded mini keg

What was quite interesting with the explosion, is that there was not much mess in the cupboard that I store the kegs in. It looks as though it was essentially CO2 which was released in the original explosion, then the beer foamed out of the keg until the pressures equilibrated. From the picture above, you can see that the cardboard on which the kegs rest is sodden.


A view of the exploded keg outside the cupboard

A close-up showing how the metal tore

Another close-up of the tear

Another close-up showing the bung still seated in position

From the last picture, you can see the grey bung still firmly in position, so the seal formed between the bung and the keg is very good.

Notes

  • This particular keg had only been used once before (several of my other mini kegs have been used at least six times)
  • The beer, a stout, had been kegged just over five months before the explosion
  • 13g of dextrose had been used as the amount of priming sugar
  • The S.G. on kegging was 1.022. It had been steady on 1.022 for six days prior to kegging
  • The beer had been in the fermenter for eleven days

After this incident I have become very wary of using the mini kegs. Currently (30 June, 2018), I am only using one mini keg per batch and using bottles for the rest of the batch.



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