What in the heck happened!?

[vidarien]

I brewed up 4 different beers, attached them all to the gas lines, threw them in the chest freezer to cool off for a while.

I opened the chest this afternoon (checked it yesterday..everything was fine) and my ENTIRE 5 gallons of West Coast Pale was on the floor of my chest freezer, with my empty corny keg smiling at me. The other 2 kegs just sat there and watched helplessly.

I ended up pulling out my racking cane and racking it back into the keg, i wasnt writing off an entire batch...though i know its very well aerated and im sure its infected to all hell now. So..an hour later i finally got it all out of the bottom...washed out the bottom...disinfected it..and put everything back in and repressurized.

What i want to know is...how/why. Im relatively certain it came out of the liquid out disconnect. I dont think theres a leak in keg itself. And on top of that, it emptied out the ENTIRE keg onto the floor. (Nothing was attached to the liquid disconnect post)

 

[beaksnbeer]

Leaking poppet

 

[BigUgly]

That hurt to read. I would have hooked the keg back up empty, pressured up and sprayed it with star-san solution to find any leaks before re-kegging it.

Once I removed my liquid out disconnect only to have IPA shoot straight into my eyes, which burned like hell! I couldn't get it to stop either so my entire kegerator was soaked when I was finally able to find the disconnect (blindly searching) and reattach it. The poppet was jammed causing it to spray like that. It's not as bad as your situation, but it may be a similar issue with your keg.

It has to be on the liquid out too; you couldn't completely drain the keg from the gas disconnect.

 

[vidarien]

Yeah..what you guys said was my best guess. I can deal with aeration since itll probably be gone before the oxygenation can really take its toll on the beer...but i know its got to be infected to hell and back after resting on the floor of the freezer..so..hopefully i can focus on that keg and drink it up fast before it starts tasting 'interesting' once the bacteria get a hold. on average its about 38 degrees though so i should have some time..i hope.