Beer flow reduced to a foamy dribble out of my kegerator

[BTFootball]

So here's the kegerator I have: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017HVSKRY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I've been having success with sparkling water and cider, but my first beer is giving me some problems. It worked out okay at first. Foam was a bit heavy, but that was likely a tower cooling issue that I'm working on.

Out of nowhere though, I've had this weird issue where liquid is barely coming through the tubes at all, just a dribble of foam. If you look at the tubing, you can see that it's mostly just whitish foam inside. The CO2 pressure is at 10 psi, and using the release valve demonstrates that the keg is carbonated, but the flow is still very flaccid.

Anyone else had this problem or know an obvious culprit?

 

[WFox93]

I had this once, my keg was empty. It surprised me too. Somehow I think you would have checked that though.

There may be air getting in the line.

 

[November]

Is the keg frozen?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Clogged keg dip tube is my bet. Easy to do with corny kegs, especially if you don't put in clear beer or aren't careful racking.

Easiest way I found to fix was to disconnect the beer and gas lines, depressurize the keg entirely. Take apart the liquid QD and make sure it's not clogged. Then pull off the liquid post, clean it too, hit the open tube with sanitizer spray and then push LOW pressure (1 or 2 psi) into the keg with the liquid post still off until clear beer overflows. It'll happen real fast, immediately cut the gas QD and pull the keg PRV to stop the flow. Sanitize and reconnect everything, and then I'd repurge the headspace a couple times and flush the dip tube with beer.

 

[BTFootball]

I checked some other obvious stuff today. The keg is not frozen or empty. I also tried moving the liquid tube and disconnect onto another keg, and that's working just fine! So the good news is it's not a problem with the disconnect or anything above it. It's a keg problem.

Pretty odd given that it's pretty much brand new, though... I'll try the things that Qhrumphf mentioned

 

[BTFootball]

SOLVED! Turns out Qhrumphf was bang on. Thanks!

There was some cheeky hop residue clogging up the liquid post. Just had to do a brief unscrew/dissemble of the post to get at the clog.

 

[Qhrumphf]

SOLVED! Turns out Qhrumphf was bang on. Thanks!

There was some cheeky hop residue clogging up the liquid post. Just had to do a brief unscrew/dissemble of the post to get at the clog.

It's almost like I've, you know, experienced that exact same issue with the exact same cause multiple times in the past.



Sometimes it's the QD, sometimes it's the post (as yours was), sometimes it's the dip tube itself. Primarily happened with extra turbid hoppy beers (NE DIPAs and such), or occasions where I've added something to the keg itself.

Cheers

 

[william_shakes_beer]

If this reoccurs frequently, you might consider flushing your beer lines, posts and taps each time you sanitize a keg. Its easy to do. Fill a keg half way with sanitizer. Hook it up to gas, pressurize and flow a pitcher's worth out to a scrap bucket. Don't forget to flow the sanitizer in the line out to the scrap bucket as well after you switch back to the beer tap.