Keg won't serve... Don't get it

Been force carbing 4 gallons of Pliny clone at 24 psi or so for 30 hours or so.

I turn off gas, bleed off headspace, put gas back on at 10 psi... Nothing. I pull hop bag off keg floor and hang it out of the way of the dip tube thinking that should do it. Nope.... What am I missing? Gas is going to the keg as I have to bleed it off every time I open the lid. Other taps and lines won't work on the keg either.... Can't figure this one out after 1.5 years of kegging.

Stab in the dark. Are you double sure the disconnect is going on completely and not hanging up on something? I've had this happen before... Or there's an IN post on the OUT side? Cheers!!!

Thanks for the suggestion, but yep the in and outs are right. I've pulled the connections off so many times I doubt it could be hung up.

Man I really don't want to have to dump this Pliny clone. It smells so good.

I'm sure sme gunk made it over from the primary, hop pellet wise... 14 oz of hops were dumped right in the primary and then I could only siphon out 4 gallons of finished beer after dumping the first dry hop in loose. Wondering if hop gunk is causing this.

with the fitting off - can you push in on the center with the keg at low pressure and see if anything comes out. If not try putting gas pressure on the outlet to blow out the dip tube, see if you can hear it bubbling. I would guess a little chunk of something made it in the tube.

don't dump it... if you had a hop bag on the floor, it may have gotten clogged, might just need to take off the OUT parts and clean it on up

Happened to us. Open lid and cover with a "Dave Rag" (Sanitizer Soaked paper towel or Scott Rag) Low pressure start then increase on the outlet to unclog the tube, then let settle. You will hear it clear. It took a lot of pressure for us to clear the clog. Our brew turned out fine.

Yup ... I would try to back flow (pressurize) the OUT side .. see if you can push out whatever is in the tube. Worse case .. pressurize it .. flip keg upside down and feed out from the IN side fitting. ( found that one out on one of those drunken need a beer but the damn tap is not working nights )

BTW, we have a Black Out Ball Lock connected to a Gray In Ball Lock cap and use an empty keg to go to the outlet with gas. We use it to fill kegs with CO2 when transferring and used to use the other way to pass PBW to the Gas side when cleaning We now have a dedicated cleaner system so we just now use it to put in a layer of CO2.

When I saw the title of this thread, somehow I knew it was going to be a IIPA...

Tried pressurizing the IN side and managed to get SOME flow, and I looked at the line and I can see hop pellet floaties moving up the liquid line.... And then it clogged again.

I'm thinking the loose dry hops have fallen out of solution on the bottom of the keg and are clogging up the works - I've moved that dip tube around a bunch and it doesn't seem to want to unclog.

I'm thinking a sure screen is the only savior here. Pull the dip tube, attach screen and hope it works. I have to order one which sucks.... Any thoughts on a makeshift one? Pantyhose zip tied to end of the dip tube?

First time I've ever missed bottling.

Time to attach a handle and use it as a gigantic beer mug.

Yeah, kegs do have their own set of headaches.

You could rack the beer to a new keg (which I've done for a hop-clogged IIPA) or cut the last 1/2 off the liquid dip tube.

bigbeergeek said:

Yeah, kegs do have their own set of headaches.

You could rack the beer to a new keg (which I've done for a hop-clogged IIPA) or cut the last 1/2 off the liquid dip tube.

Click to expand...

Ditto on cutting off 1/2" on the tube. You can pull the tube out from the top without disturbing your beer. You can then check if it's plugged. You can either clean it out and try again or clean it out, cut it 1/2" shorter and then use it. It's handy to have a keg or two with a shorter dip tube for just these types of situations.