noob kegging question

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.

BWickett4

Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2011
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Location
Lawndale
Hey guys. I'm kegging for the first time and having issues. I feel like I'm missing something really obvious, but can't figure out what it is. I just bought a very clean, good looking kegerator from someone who appears to be a very trustworthy person. Last night I kegged two different beers into separate Corny's and started to pressurize. No leaks, everything seemed fine. Today I attached the beer out QD's, and zero beer went into the lines (including when I opened the taps). The kegs have pressure (15psi) although I tried bumping up the pressure to 30 psi to see what happened. I tried pushing down on the poppets and sure enough a lot of beer came out. I'm almost sure I've properly seated the qd's, they look perfectly clean, the little pin inside that would push down on the poppet can be pushed up and down (is this piece supposed to move by the way?). It's a four tap kegerator and I've switched all four beer lines between the two different kegs and its still the same. Because beer will come out of the out when the poppet is depressed, I'm thinking it's a qd issue? What gives? I'm stumped and wishing I knew more about kegging so that I could self diagnose. Is there an on/off valve on qd's? Like I said, hopefully its something really obvious/dumb....
 
Are you sure you have the in and out diptubes in the right spot? Your beer out diptube may be swapped with your gas in diptube.
 
Used kegs I assume? All of mine are. New cost way to much for me. I had one with really slow flow once. The poppet in the beer out post was pushed up too far. It put too much tension on it and the spring in the disconnect couldn't push it in.
 
Yep, I checked the dip tube locations and they are good. The kegs are used from a friend and he wasn't having any issues with them when he loaned them to me.
 
Here are more thoughts and information... the kegs are carb'd, if I push down on the "beer out" poppet, beer will spray everywhere, but when I put on the qd's, nothing. Here's what I can't figure out. The qd's have a pin in them which should push down and depress the spring loaded poppet. But the qd pins are spring loaded as well. For beer to go into the beer line, the qd pin has to be pushed up, while somehow managing to push down into the "beer out" poppet. Mechanically, that seems pretty difficult. Is this really how they're supposed to work (two spring loaded objects pushing on each other?) Do I need a longer pin in the qd? The qd's seem to be pushed onto the keg as far as possible. Any thoughts?
 
BWickett4 said:
Here are more thoughts and information... the kegs are carb'd, if I push down on the "beer out" poppet, beer will spray everywhere, but when I put on the qd's, nothing. Here's what I can't figure out. The qd's have a pin in them which should push down and depress the spring loaded poppet. But the qd pins are spring loaded as well. For beer to go into the beer line, the qd pin has to be pushed up, while somehow managing to push down into the "beer out" poppet. Mechanically, that seems pretty difficult. Is this really how they're supposed to work (two spring loaded objects pushing on each other?) Do I need a longer pin in the qd? The qd's seem to be pushed onto the keg as far as possible. Any thoughts?

Yes, that's how they work. Go back to my post. This is exactly what I mentioned might be happening in not so many words. The pin in the qd is just fine unless it is broken or the cap isn't screwed down all the way. You need to depressurize the keg, remove the beer out post, and check the poppet. It should come out relatively easily. If it is stuck bend a hook from a paper clip or something and pull it out.
 
Cornelius vs. Firestone posts on top of the kegs? They look the same, but don't fit the same. Kegs are pretty straight-forward, but there are little differences in some of the pieces that cause minor problems.
Just a guess....
 
The kegs are used from a friend and he wasn't having any issues with them when he loaned them to me.

If that's true, then the only things left are a bad QD, you plugged up the dip tube, or you're not seating the QD all the way down.

if I push down on the "beer out" poppet, beer will spray everywhere, but when I put on the qd's, nothing.

Eliminates the plugged up dip tube, leaving a bad or improperly installed QD. I'm going with the latter...

Cheers!
 
Thanks for the help guys, problem solved. As I suspected, my kegging newbie-ness was what was killing me. I was fiddling around last night with the qd's, and realized that the outer flange is spring loaded and moves up and down. Somehow I didn't notice that before. For whatever reason, you can get the qd fully on with out raising that flange, but no beer will come out. But when you first pull up on the outer flange, and then connect the qd, voila, beer! Beer lines filled so fast I almost didn't even realize that I had figured it out. I actually measured the qd (measured from bottom of qd to bottom of keg post) by seating it using the two methods above and both ways it seated on the same amount but obviously with different outcomes. Two kegs now pouring keg beer. Hopefully this helps someone else out in the future that has no idea how to attach a qd properly.
 
Back
Top