Keg spouting air and liquid non stop with CO2 off - how to fix?

[nabdp]

I’m thinking, maybe the beer inside got frozen somehow. Never seen this before. Was not getting anything but foam and then nothing out of the tap on the kegerator. Turned off the CO2 but the pressure looked fine. When I pin vent at the keg side I am getting nonstop air and foamy beer out of The coupler. Never got liquid here before only just air. This is with the CO2 fully switched off. What might be happening and is there a way to fix this? Thanks for any advice.

 

[day_trippr]

I learned never assume anything on HBT, so...

• What type of keg is this?
• When was it filled?
• Were there any successful pours, or was it like this from the start?

Cheers!

 

[nabdp]

This is a store bought 1/4 tall keg of miller lite (sorry) that has been in there for about 3 weeks and ran fine at tap time but had not been run for about 2 weeks. Now doing this. I assume eventually when you vent a keg at the coupler it should stop gassing and not be spouting liquid right?

 

[day_trippr]

Glad I asked - I would otherwise have assumed this was a cornelius style keg subject to all that style's vulnerabilities and likely wasted your time with a misguided response (and there are a few that come to mind).

Anyway...if you shut off or disconnect the gas supply to the misbehaving keg, then vent the coupler long enough to drop the head space pressure to atmospheric ("logical zero", wrt pouring), indeed said keg should no longer dispense...anything...

Cheers!

 

[nabdp]

Turns out that 95% of the Miller lite keg was frozen solid. Hence the behavior that was happening above. Turns out a frozen keg can cause all kinds of problems to your draft. Who knew? Haha

The beer that did manage to thaw was disgusting, and that’s because the rest of it was still in a big ice ball at the bottom of the keg.