Why is my kegerator not dispensing beer???

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
HopHead10

HopHead10

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Messages
124
Reaction score
0
Location
Chicago
I let my batch I kegged cool over night in order to absorb co2. I have the regulator at 18 psi for a night and the co2 on the correct side. I pull the lever and nothing comes out!! I've never had this problem before.

I swear since starting to keg a year ago I've had nothing but problems. Help!

Thx in advance.
 
Edit to say I through an ounce of hops directly in the keg. Am I screwed? How do I recover?
 
Is there beer in the beverage out line? Does air even come out when you pull the lever? If you pull the relief valve on the keg, does CO2 come out? Is there beer in the keg ;)
 
HopHead10 said:
Edit to say I through an ounce of hops directly in the keg. Am I screwed? How do I recover?
Click to expand...

If you're clogged, you have a few options, don't worry. Do you have a 2nd keg and extra quick disconnects and/or tubing? If not, you can shoot Co2 into the liquid out tube quickly and try to dislodge the hops.
 
Were the hops pellet or whole leaf? Pellet should be able to make it through (if not right now, then they'll eventually break down enough). Whole leaf might pose a problem...
 
Pellet hops

I have a second keg and connects/ lining. I just kegged last nite so it needs time to carb anyway. Soo verdict is: wait for beer to carb and hops to break down?? Aka do nothing?! If so, that is sweet

There is co2 in the keg when I pull relief and a little bit of beer in the beer line.
 
My experience says you're not going to be able you use that keg, but I've never waited for hops to break down, however long that might take.

I'd purge a bit, set regulator at 10 psi and blast some co2 thru the liquid out tube. Let it sit for a day and try to pour from tap. If its still clogged, purge all gas, swap the liquid and gas posts and then lay the keg on the ground gas in side down. Hook beer connect to gas in post and 5+ ft of line to another keg's liquid out tube. When settled, turn regulator to 5 psi and connect to full keg. Then hook up the liquid lines and purge new keg, beer will start going over. Purge continuously until all beer is transferred, could take 5-10 min.

So you want the little gas in tube facing the ground with a liquid out post on that side of the keg. The gas line will connect to the diptube side.That'll keep the hops from transferring or clogging. I dry hop this way now and use it as a filter.
 
Can i just siphon the beer to another keg??? The above is very confusing and not sure I could pull it off.

If I can't transfer, are there any other options of video/picture demonstrations of what you are talking about?

Thx.
 
Also, I tried to inject the dip tube with co2 shortly, waited a day and still no luck.
 
I know this may sound dumb, but it happened to me once. Verify that the liquid out ball-lock is all the way seated and snaped down. Sometimes it feels and looks like it is seated, but it is not fully down.
 
You could siphon but then you'd be needlessly exposing your brew to oxygen. Theveganbrewer's suggestion is the best path. You basically want to make a short jumper to connect two kegs together and transfer just the beer to a new keg. The trick here is that to avoid picking up the hops you want to hook up to the problem kegs liquid post with your CO2 and use the gas post to transfer the beer out.

The flow patt would be CO2 into the problem keg via liquid post, beer out the problem keg via gas post, beer into new (sterilized/purged) keg via liquid out post, CO2 out of new keg via relief valve

Since the gas post is so short you need to keep it on the bottom of the keg to draw liquid. Lay it on its side as suggested by TVB or upside down if you can support it somehow. Just make sure you give the hops time to settle once you position the keg. If you get impatient and leave them in suspension then they could get sucked up again and clog the transfer.
 
llvllayhem said:
I know this may sound dumb, but it happened to me once. Verify that the liquid out ball-lock is all the way seated and snaped down. Sometimes it feels and looks like it is seated, but it is not fully down.
Click to expand...

I checked this. It appears to be fully snapped and seated. Each time I pull the handle a litttttle bit of beer comes out but not much at all.

So can I just rack this into another, sanitized keg?
 
Thirteen said:
You could siphon but then you'd be needlessly exposing your brew to oxygen. Theveganbrewer's suggestion is the best path. You basically want to make a short jumper to connect two kegs together and transfer just the beer to a new keg. The trick here is that to avoid picking up the hops you want to hook up to the problem kegs liquid post with your CO2 and use the gas post to transfer the beer out.

The flow patt would be CO2 into the problem keg via liquid post, beer out the problem keg via gas post, beer into new (sterilized/purged) keg via liquid out post, CO2 out of new keg via relief valve

Since the gas post is so short you need to keep it on the bottom of the keg to draw liquid. Lay it on its side as suggested by TVB or upside down if you can support it somehow. Just make sure you give the hops time to settle once you position the keg. If you get impatient and leave them in suspension then they could get sucked up again and clog the transfer.
Click to expand...

Ok that is more clear.

So I have to go buy more beer tubing and QD's to make a short beer jumper to connect one end to gas on problem side and the other to the beer out post on the new keg. Few questions:

1.) how do I "purge" the new, sanitized keg?
2.) how long do I let the keg sit on it's side for the hop matter to settle?

3.) what are the chances that this will unclog if I wait it out (pellet hops)?
4.) chances of ruining the beer if I just quickly transfer to new sanitized keg?
 
HopHead10 said:
Ok that is more clear.

So I have to go buy more beer tubing and QD's to make a short beer jumper to connect one end to gas on problem side and the other to the beer out post on the new keg. Few questions:

1.) how do I "purge" the new, sanitized keg?
2.) how long do I let the keg sit on it's side for the hop matter to settle?

3.) what are the chances that this will unclog if I wait it out (pellet hops)?
4.) chances of ruining the beer if I just quickly transfer to new sanitized keg?
Click to expand...


1. Seal it up, put gas on, fill it up, pull the manual release on the keg till it's empty. Repeat again, and it's ready.
2. 15 minutes or so is as long as I give it on it's side. I've done this with 4 ounces of dry hop pellets in the keg, always works.

3. Never happened to me, always remained clogged.
4. Zero if you to the transfer as I recommended, higher if you go another route.

It costs about 5 bucks to get an extra connector, and you could use it again in the future. All you have to do is take and existing connector and it's tube, unhook the non connector end (that's into your faucet), connect that to a quick disconnect, execute the transfer, then just take the one quick disconnect off and re-connect to the faucet. No need for extra tubing.
 
This just happened to me. I must have pulled out a lot l hop matter when racking from the secondary to the leg. The hop matter clogged the end of the dip stick. I tried a few things that didn't work. In the end I just racked to a new keg and it flows fine. I am skeptical on how I would ruin my beer by re exposing it to oxygen. I did the day before to get it in the keg the first time.
 
buzzbromp said:
This just happened to me. I must have pulled out a lot l hop matter when racking from the secondary to the leg. The hop matter clogged the end of the dip stick. I tried a few things that didn't work. In the end I just racked to a new keg and it flows fine. I am skeptical on how I would ruin my beer by re exposing it to oxygen. I did the day before to get it in the keg the first time.
Click to expand...

I did the same thing. I threw my dry hop pellets directly into the keg. Once. The hop sludge plugs the poppet. There was no way to clear it and serve out of that keg.

I just siphoned to another keg and left the sludge in the bottom of the first keg.

The beer was fine.
 
CGVT said:
I did the same thing. I threw my dry hop pellets directly into the keg. Once. The hop sludge plugs the poppet. There was no way to clear it and serve out of that keg.

I just siphoned to another keg and left the sludge in the bottom of the first keg.

The beer was fine.
Click to expand...

You say there is no way to clear and serve out of the original keg. Yet you can if you pull the poppet and tube out and clean them. You can also cut the length of tube down so it is above the settled hop mass. I have a tube that reaches about 1/2 way down and it allows you to serve the top half of the keg while there is still particulates making their way to the bottom. Once I reach the 1/2 way point I'll either put a full length tube or one that has been cut back a 1/2 inch so it is above the sludge.
 
iaefebs said:
You say there is no way to clear and serve out of the original keg. Yet you can if you pull the poppet and tube out and clean them. You can also cut the length of tube down so it is above the settled hop mass. I have a tube that reaches about 1/2 way down and it allows you to serve the top half of the keg while there is still particulates making their way to the bottom. Once I reach the 1/2 way point I'll either put a full length tube or one that has been cut back a 1/2 inch so it is above the sludge.
Click to expand...

Yep. You can do all of that stuff and piss around with it for a week or two or even longer. Or you can sanitize a keg and your siphon equipment and take care of it and be drinking the beer in a half hour...
 
CGVT said:
Yep. You can do all of that stuff and piss around with it for a week or two or even longer. Or you can sanitize a keg and your siphon equipment and take care of it and be drinking the beer in a half hour...
Click to expand...

I like the way you think.... I am going this route.

Thanks for all the input though! For me, i would have to go buy extra tubing and disconnects because I don't know how I'm going to reach all the way up my beer tower to the beer line connecting to the faucet. Not sure how I will do this one day when I want to replace the beer lines (I already see some gunk building up in the lines).
 
CGVT said:
Yep. You can do all of that stuff and piss around with it for a week or two or even longer. Or you can sanitize a keg and your siphon equipment and take care of it and be drinking the beer in a half hour...
Click to expand...

I like the way you think.... I am going this route.

Thanks for all the input though! For me, i would have to go buy extra tubing and disconnects because I don't know how I'm going to reach all the way up my beer tower to the beer line connecting to the faucet. Not sure how I will do this one day when I want to replace the beer lines (I already see some gunk building up in the lines).
 
Edit: Just FYI. This post was directed at a post by iaefebs that he deleted...

Really?

The point was that there is a very simple solution. I've done it before. It doesn't stir up anything and it works. He has essentially cold crashed the beer. All of the hops will have settled to the bottom. He doesn't need any special tubes, because he won't throw pellet hops directly into a keg again (I know I won't)

It would take him less time to transfer to another keg than read your post, let alone do all of the crap that is included in it.

(and yes, I know that my statement is hyperbole, but maybe the point gets through this time ;))
 
HopHead10 said:
I like the way you think.... I am going this route.

Thanks for all the input though! For me, i would have to go buy extra tubing and disconnects because I don't know how I'm going to reach all the way up my beer tower to the beer line connecting to the faucet. Not sure how I will do this one day when I want to replace the beer lines (I already see some gunk building up in the lines).
Click to expand...

Did all go well with the siphon method? I've got the same issue and I was debating a few options with one being to just siphon into another keg and go.

I also thought of releasing all the pressure and just removing the OUT post and dip tube, clean it, sanitize, and then install back onto the keg. That seems like more of a risk than just moving the beer into another sanitized keg though.
 
jamursch said:
Did all go well with the siphon method? I've got the same issue and I was debating a few options with one being to just siphon into another keg and go.

I also thought of releasing all the pressure and just removing the OUT post and dip tube, clean it, sanitize, and then install back onto the keg. That seems like more of a risk than just moving the beer into another sanitized keg though.
Click to expand...

This will work, eventually. You may have to do it quite a few times until all of the hops are cleared from the keg. It depends on how much hops you have in the keg and it doesn't take a lot of hop sludge to plug the post with solid hop sludge.

If you siphon to another keg, you are done in a few minutes.
 

Similar threads

kev211
Beer Gas
Replies
1
Views
176
Dr_Jeff
D
Zenmeister
CO2 Regulator question
Replies
10
Views
228
Zenmeister
Zenmeister
P
Kegerator / regulator issue? - beer not flowing properly and I'm out of ideas
Replies
30
Views
1K
day_trippr
day_trippr
R
Weird noise coming from my kegerator
Replies
19
Views
676
Dland
Dland
XBOXHACKER
Yes, another beer foam thread....
Replies
11
Views
706
IslandLizard
IslandLizard
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top