Nosybear said:
Don't these systems come with pressure gauges?
You got two gauges:
1)
Bottle Pressure. Gives a high pressure reading of the bottle. It cant tell you when the bottle is empty, only that the pressure is no longer "high". Sort of like using an odometer to measure your Johnson.
2)
Keg Pressure. This gives a reading of the line pressure. This can be deceiving, especially with large systems, as it will read the proper pressure, up to and until, the bottle pressure is the same as the line pressure, and then you will start to notice the drop.
If you notice the drop. More likely, you will notice the beer flowing slowly, and by then its already dropped to the point that the pressure is actually gas coming out of solution system wide. The more kegs, the larger the total volume, the more slowly this pressure drop manifests itself. Furthermore, this effects the entire system. All beers that are connected will loose CO2 equally. And this ALWAYS seems to happen at night, on weekends, and after you been drinking. Murphy's Law.
What you can do, besides have a backup CO2 source, is pay attention to the high pressure gauge, and as it gets close to empty, shutoff the gas to all but the keg you are drinking on. This isolates the system to just one keg, simplifying the pressure drop identification procedure, and preserving the CO2 levels in the kegs not connected.