Clogged corny keg... what to do?

So I recently did Northern brewer's peace coffee porter extract kit and ran into some issues when racking into the keg. This recipe calls for an addition of coarse ground coffee into the secondary... No mention of putting grounds into a grain bag. So I let the beer sit on the coffee for a week and then go to rack into my corny keg and I'm having all sorts of issues with my autosiphon clogging on the coffee grounds. So after trying several things I broke down and poured the porter through a sanitized grain bag into the keg. Fast forward a week... My beer has been sitting under pressure and should be good to pour, hook it up and we're getting nothing. I think I have some coffee grounds clogging the stem in the corny keg. WTF do I do now? Can I slowly bleed off the co2, rack the beer into another keg and recarbonate? Grrrr.

Or, you could bleed off the CO2, spray the posts down with star san, remove the liquid out post and then pull and unclog the diptube. Sanitize everything good and re-assemble. No need to rack to another keg IMO. Just pay attention to sanitation, cover the open post hole with some sanitized foil and you should be good to go. If the clogging continues then its time to punt.

What a way to break in the new keg, having the same problem... When I open my picnic tap nothing happens. It must be way clogged. There are chunks of hop debris throughout the line, I have no idea what to do.

It's only been two days, should I just wait the rest of the week then attempt to unclog the dip tube?

I just had to do this with my all citra IPA, to much dry hops got in and clogged it. I just bled off the CO2 and transferred it to a clean keg and it worked great, it was carbonated immediately, enough CO2 must stay in the solution that it didn't drop off at all.

As previously suggested, try clearing the liquid dip tube and see if that fixes it. If you have 1/2" of grounds at the bottom of the keg however, and it keeps clogging over and over, I'd rack it to another keg. I've had the same experience with a messily dry hopped keg of IIPA. After clearing the dip tube 3 times, I racked and the problem was solved. Start with the simplest solution first. Good luck!

How about hooking your gas up the beer out post and pulling the pressure release? That might temporarily clear the tube but if it clogged once it'll probably happen again. Ball lock posts are slightly different sizes, but it's not impossible to do.

Thanks for the input guys, project for tomorrow. I'm going to try pulling the diptube. Also funny that I searched for another similar thread before asking and another guy asked the same question within minutes.

fredtheseal said:

How about hooking your gas up the beer out post and pulling the pressure release? That might temporarily clear the tube but if it clogged once it'll probably happen again. Ball lock posts are slightly different sizes, but it's not impossible to do.

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That's never worked for me, although it seems like it should. I suppose if the dip tube itself were clogged, it might work. But if the clog has lodged itself in the poppit (which I would wager is usually the case) it's hard (if not impossible) to dislodge it without taking things apart.

Not a fan of coffee grinds in fermented beer, obviously you know why. You guys might try some cold crashing to get everything to settle out before doing transfers. In the future you should consider cold brewing those grinds and adding just the liquid to your beer. Hope it works for you!

Well, pulled the dip tube, cleared, clogged again... and again. Ended up having to rack it out into a carboy, clean out the keg and rack back in. A good argument for an extra corny keg to have on deck for these emergencies... Because after tasting I'm sure to make this one again!

Christer said:

Well, pulled the dip tube, cleared, clogged again... and again. Ended up having to rack it out into a carboy, clean out the keg and rack back in. A good argument for an extra corny keg to have on deck for these emergencies... Because after tasting I'm sure to make this one again!

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So everything worked out nicely? It looks like I may have to do the exact same thing. Was your beer carbonated when you racked it into the carboy?

Yes, it was carbonated, had to restart the autosiphon a few times as I started to get some foam in the tubing while going to the carboy and back to the keg but its pouring nicely now.

I had a feeling you might need to rack as I've been there a couple of times myself. It feels weird racking carbed beer around but surprisingly most of the CO2 stays in solution (probably because the beer is cold).

At any rate, glad to hear things are flowing again!

I was able to clear a clog by switching the corny keg connections and hooking up the beer 'out' to the CO2 line. Then I just started venting the keg through the vent at the top and it blew out the clog into the keg. Never had to take the beer out and didn't have any foam issues at all.

I racked an IPA from primary to a corny keg and used a hop bag to dry hop in the keg for 7 days while carbonating. I had the same problem today when I tried to pull a test through the picnic tap - nothing came out. I tried pushing the gas through the out post, that didn't work. I then removed the out post and held my finger on the tube while putting a little pressure in the keg, that dislodged the yeast/troob and it sprayed out (on my shirt). I hit the gas released and then put the out post back on the keg, charged the keg to 20psi and after a few ounces of yeast I had clear beer.