Possible Sankey keg clogged? Barely pours

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.

piratewoo

New Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2021
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
I have been homebrewing for a few years with decent success. I just made a NEIPA and from the carboy kegged it to a sankey keg. Just put it on tap recently and the tap was pretty quickly clogged with bits of trub. It was pouring super slow and I thought the keg may be blocked so I blasted some Co2 in the beer line and waited a day. My first pour was all foam so I took the tap off and cleaned it, connected just a clear beer tube for pouring (skipped the kegerator) and tried a different tap. Same problem. All it get is some very slow pouring foam. I'm thinking the keg spear may be clogged. Any suggestions or tips to clear this? Worst case would be to take it all apart and move the beer to another keg (maybe filtering it to a bucket first.
 
Could be plugging the poppet. NEIPA is good for that with all the late additions and the FAST turn around time. Have you tried a picnic faucet blow out with some high pressure (like 30 PSI) Let it settle and then connect your gas at 30 PSI connect a picnic faucet and BLOW it into a pitcher. I use to do this all the time. If that doesn't work then yes, let it settle in the keg for a few days then open and transfer into another keg may be your only option. I mean there is the pull, cut and replace dip tube options I guess too... It can also be the "Beer out" connector. We have seen that a few times too. Where the black ball lock connect poppet is broken and doesn't depress the keg poppet far enough.

Cheers
Jay
 
It's pretty difficult to clog a sankey spear (though not impossible). Especially with beer (even with some settled trub).

I'd sooner suspect a problem with your coupler or a damaged keg valve. Not uncommon for a damaged/corroded gasket on the coupler or keg valve to basically form a bypass allowing the CO2 supply to pass directly into the beer line.
 
Thanks, that might have done it. I had tried a picnic faucet (didn't know that was what that was called :) but I put high pressure on it and it started to flow, then seemed to get blocked again. I blew pressure into the gas line and quickly switched and was able to get it to flow pretty good. Hooked it back to the kegerator and it is flowing (mostly foam at this point but I'll let it settle and see). Now I just have 1/4 pitcher of beer that I'll have to drink after it settles so I don't waste it.
 
I just realized (Read again) you are using a SANKE! Not a Ball lock. I totally missed that!

That ball on the Sanke can get clogged but likely something to do with your keg coupler.

Cheers
Jay
 
I have been homebrewing for a few years with decent success. I just made a NEIPA and from the carboy kegged it to a sankey keg. Just put it on tap recently and the tap was pretty quickly clogged with bits of trub. It was pouring super slow and I thought the keg may be blocked so I blasted some Co2 in the beer line and waited a day. My first pour was all foam so I took the tap off and cleaned it, connected just a clear beer tube for pouring (skipped the kegerator) and tried a different tap. Same problem. All it get is some very slow pouring foam. I'm thinking the keg spear may be clogged. Any suggestions or tips to clear this? Worst case would be to take it all apart and move the beer to another keg (maybe filtering it to a bucket first.
If you decide to pull that sanke apart, please make sure to let all the gas out first. That spear will fly out like a deadly weapon.
 
I just realized (Read again) you are using a SANKE! Not a Ball lock. I totally missed that!

That ball on the Sanke can get clogged but likely something to do with your keg coupler.

Cheers
Jay

LOL, Jay, I spent quite a while trying to figure out where the poppet was on a sankey keg cause I didn't want to show my ignorance. :) Thanks for the post!
 
Beer is flowing quite well after high pressure into a pitcher. Beer is quite nice and will probably get better. I'm not an IPA guy, I prefer Belgians and Saisons so this is my first NEIPA. It pours as mostly foam so the carbonation is too high in the keg. I tend to struggle with that as I usually force carbonate at room temperature so I tend to carbonate high (I went through a period of time when I would put on a new keg and it would have very little carbonation.) I've read articles to try to determine what psi to use at what temperature but I guess it is one of those art/science things. Not too big an issue as I just release Co2 on the keg until it evens out. Thanks again for all the help and hopefully my post can help someone else in the future!
 
On a Neipa my guess is you probably have hop debris getting caught up at the sanke spear beer out where the ball is. You said you force carb warm which makes me think you don't cold crash hence a lot of floating hop debris. You will probably just have to do your best to get through it and back flush the debris out when you clean the keg.
 
Back
Top