Kegging trouble

I have kegged my first beer and I am already having trouble... i have had my Imperial Blonde Ale carbonating for 10 day at 18psi and thought today would be a good day to try... I connect my liquid out beer flows into the line. I open the faucet an just a dribble comes out. I re check all my gas lines and valves, all open. I try again and nothing. I de-gas the keg and look inside and all is well. Then I recheck the fliud line and its empty. Is it likely that there is so much trub at the bottom that it clogged the dip tube? Or is it more likely that my kegerator froze my beer at the bottom of my keg. What can I do to fix these problems and still save the beer?

One more thing... i do not have a fan in my kegerator but, the temp tends to stay even.

From my experience, the dip tube and/or poppet are clogged.

Most commonly it's a clogged dip tube or poppet as mentioned above, but the only time this kind of thing has happened to me, being I've never had a clog myself, is when any residual water left over from cleaning or sanitizing has frozen in the lines. I just used my hands to warm up the lines and flow resumed. Since then I make sure to never let the lines rest on the floor of my kegerator, I always keep them sitting atop any keg(s) inside. Never had an issue since. Not sure if this is what's causing your issue but it's a quick thing to try to see if it helps.


Rev.

I had an issue like this after I bought some used kegs. Replaced the Poppet, didn't fix it. Replaced the Ball Lock QD, didn't fix it. Swapped the Dip Tube and all was well. Dip Tube wasn't clogged, but it was too long.

I think i am going to rack off of the first keg into a new keg, leaving the yeast and muck behind.

I've definitely had clogged dip tubes and poppets before, especially when I was dry hopping in the keg, and hob debri would find a way out of the bag.

A quick way to check is to degass the keg, hook up a liquid line to your regulator, and push CO2 through the dip tube to see if it clears up anything, then reconnect the liquid line, reconnect the gas line to the inlet, and see if you can then get anything through. If you can, then it stops again, it is pretty clear you have a blockage in the dip tube or poppet.

If you have this blockage, it may be difficult to do a closed transfer. If your poppet is the only thing that is getting blocked, you can remove the poppet, and the poppet inside the quick disconnect, and then attach a jumper to another keg. Once you've transferred, then put the poppets back. I've had to do this before when there was way too much trub that was racked into the keg initially.

If the dip tube itself is blocked, the only way to transfer in my mind is using your racking cane and siphoning it to another keg, being careful not to bring over any of the blocking sediment.

I took the keg apart after racking into a new sanitized keg to find it was the dip tube AND pop-it. I am recarbonating now.

glad you got it figured out!