Beer Line Issue

[BKBrews]

Hi All,

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction for where to begin - have never encountered this issue before.

I had a keg blow on Saturday, so immediately after, I removed the liquid ball lock and placed it on a new keg (same beer). I didn't pour another beer until Wednesday, and it wouldn't pour - barely a trickle, and the little liquid that did come out was all foam. I thought maybe the 2nd keg was blocked with hop debris or something, so I connected CO2 to the liquid post, and blasted through it and could hear that there were no issues. As a test, I switched the same keg to a different tap line, and it is working fine.

So my issue is somewhere between the liquid ball lock post, my line, and my tap (perlick flow control). Where should I look first? I'm assuming the ball lock is the most likely to have something wrong with it, but I don't understand how it could stop a pour. There doesn't appear to be any leaks, and I cannot visually see any issues with any of the components.

I'm time poor at the moment - anyone encountered this and have recommendations on where to start? I do have spare new ball locks, so will likely swap this over on the weekend.

 

[razz]

My first thought is the beer in the keg is frozen or partially frozen BK, take the lid out and look at the beer, after depressurising of course. Also looking at the outside of the keg would see noticeable frost. This can come from the keg sitting hard up against the wall where the coolant lines are.
There is a recent thread where a member found a slight leak due to a problem in the seating of the keg post, I think it was the liquid out post. I think it caused a similar problem to yours. Check that out maybe.

 

[Malted Mick]

Hi BK Sounds like a gunked up ball lock disconect. Changing out the ball lock disconect with your spare would be a start to diagnose the problem. If it is a blocked ball lock you may have to put pressure back the opposite way to the normal liquid flow to clear it. This will require a little bit ingenuity and a couple of the KL cleaning/carbonation caps if you are using CO2 as a source of pressure. Try connecting one cap to the blocked ball lock and with the beer line connected to the barbed end of another cap. Pressure up from the line end and see what happens, if it is blocked with gunk it should pop out. I would not use any more than 45 psi to be on the safe side though. Soaking the blocked ball lock after removal in PBW may help as well. I have an assortment of spare posts and caps which I use all the time to flush or purge liquid/gas lines and fittings.

 

[BKBrews]

Thanks guys.

razz - definitely not a frozen keg - poors perfectly fine on every other tap. The seating issue could be it, but I'll stick to replacing the ball lock in the first instance and see if that does the trick. Thanks Mick!

 

[BKBrews]

I have been locked out of AHB for ages - every time I tried to log in it would just not work. So I thought I'd update here.

Turns out my perlick FC taps were completely blocked with hop matter - never happened before (normally doesn't make it out of the keg post)! So I took it all apart and we're now good to go.