Keg Not Pouring

[fursey]

Hi Guys,

I'm having trouble with my keg pouring my keg. It was working fine if not a little bit flat, I then tried force carbonating it and all I could pour was froth. No when I pull the tap I'm getting nothing.

The beer line appears to have beer but is also vastly separated with air. My regulator is reading 10 Kpa. There is definitely beer in the keg and when I pull the safety valve on the keg, gas is vented.

I'm really at loss here. Any suggestions?

Thanks
Fursey

 

[wakkatoo]

beer might be frozen down the bottom if nothing is coming out (assuming beer line / dip tube is not blocked with something else). If it is frothy then most likely it is over carbed or it could be coming out too fast or it could be too warm.

My guess is that it is over carbed and frozen. You are gonna have to defrost and de-gas the beer if thats the case. I never force carb, but carb up at serving pressure - after a week its ready to go and never had froth issues.

 

[fursey]

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a try, I have nothing else to lose.

I for one will certainly not be force carbonating again.

Thanks again

 

[crundle]

Hi Fursey,

sounds from what you have said that it is frozen. I have had that happen before and had to take the keg out of the fridge to warm up a bit.

It also sounds like you overcarbed your beer from the froth you are talking about.

If I may offer an opinion, it is that you should carb up at serving pressure first to get your system balanced. If it carbs up at serving pressure there is no possibility of overcarbing, and it will allow you to fine tune your beer line length, temperature of your fridge and gas pressure. Once you are comfortable with these, you can then do a partial force carb, such as turning up the pressure to 300KPA and rocking your cold, non carbonated keg for about 20 seconds. Then rock the keg for a while with the gas off to help it absorb, and set your gas to serving pressure and let the keg finish carbing up at that serving pressure.

To fix your overcarbonation, you will need to release the gas from the keg till it pours reasonably well, and then get it back onto serving pressure.

Hopefully you are back serving beer soon!

cheers,

Crundle

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

I'd guess frozen keg ,, had 3 frezze last night , bugger it ... our weather has been bloody hot for the last month or so , so the fridge was turned up flat out then yesterday was only 26 at the most , fridge just kept working and froze the bloody lot ...

Anyway they are back on line this morning so all is good ...
cheers

 

[jonocarroll]

My regulator is reading 10 Kpa.

Some simple things first - I take it you mean 10 psi? 10kpa won't pour much at all.

Just so we're clear - what did you do to force carb?

Second, silly as it seems... did you attach the beer QD to the OUT post? Some force-carb methods say to put the gas line on the beer QD, and if you didn't take it off, you may be tempted to try to put the beer QD on the other post. My guess is that it would produce the result you are seeing.

I wouldn't necessarily go blaming this all on the force carb - you should only stop using a method when you can identify that it is indeed the culprit. Otherwise you think you've got it all sorted but something's still stuffed up.

 

[under]

Frozen im guessing. If it was pouring fine before.

Froth is normally from overcarbed beer, or too short pouring lines from what I have read.

Im having this exact issue right now. My lines are too short and its pouring out way to fast.