Keggerator Freezing Kegs

[roddog]

OK, this is a new (and totally odd) condition. I have a standard keggerator. It is a black box with the chrome top rails that was originally for a full keg. I've switched out the tower and have 3 taps on it, 2 full size Corny's and a halfsy (3 gal) keg I keep on nitro in the back. This has been fine for the last few years! No problems, love the experience, totally balanced, blah blah blah.

Three weeks ago, my kegs started foaming rather bad and then gave up. I thought it may be a CO2 leak (didn't look at the gauges at the time) or overly dirty lines at the time. Let it sit for a few weeks while I was out of town. Came back and went to fix it and realized that the three kegs were frozen solid!

Woah.

Checked temp inside, it was 48 but the 'cold plate' in the back of the keggerator was totally iced up. Thought I had left the door a little cracked, the compressor ran all the time, moisture in the air caused the extra ice, the packing is so tight inside that there is metal-on-metal connections between the cooling plate (where the coolant flows), the NO2 bottle inside, and the actual kegs.

Took a few days to actually defrost these babies at room temperature and I've almost got them re-carb'd until tonight and again. Heffeweizen keg is frozen solid.

Anyone have this probem before?

 

[beaksnbeer]

Sounds like temp control has failed or you have a leak in the refrigerant gas which if uncharged will cause freezing

 

[day_trippr]

I'd go with the loss of control. While it's true that a system low on refrigerant may exhibit freeze-up it's typically quite localized where the high-pressure side hits the evaporator and rarely provides enough "cold" to freeze much else...

Cheers!