why won't my keg dispense?

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metaltim

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I finally have my keezer all done.. i'm hooking up my faucets again (Had some bad leaking problems my first go around, looks like i've solved that problem.)

anyway, 3 faucets are pouring great and leak free. 4th faucet won't pour. I pulled keg out to trouble shoot. I hooked up a picnic faucet to rule out the perlick.. still no pour. the liquid tube fills, but it doesn't pour. So I double check for pressure, keg is pressured. OK, maybe clogged dip tube. I release pressure, undo liquid post, run my dip tube cleaner through the dip tube, looked through it, nothing in there. So i sanitized everything, reassembled dip tube and post, put some keg lube on keg lid and closed it up and repressurized. i thought for sure whatever was wrong i would have solved it, but to my dismay, i hook up picnic tap, and nothing. the tube is full of 1/2 foam, 1/2 beer, but it won't come out of the tap. again, I double checked for pressure, keg def. has pressure.

what is going on here? in a nutshell, i cleaned out dip tube, relubed and sealed keg, it holds pressure, and it won' pour out of my perlick or a picnic tap.
 
Sounds like maybe the disconnect has an obstruction. If not that maybe the poppet has something stuck in it that blocks the flow. Just guessing.
 
quick update, i realized i didn't take apart poppet.. so i was like duh, there's hop chunks in there.. well i took it apart again, cleaned poppet.. still no pour. I'm looking at this keg wondering what the hell could be wrong. I took a screw driver and pushed down on the liquid post (prepared with a towel around it), and as expected, beer game squirting out. so nothing is clogged, dip tube isn't punctured, beer is coming out of post if i push down.

why in the hell won't beer come out of the faucets i'm hooking up to it? I've tried my perlick, and two picnic taps.. not one drop will come out.
this is really frustrating.

to above poster, All 3 faucets that I'm hooking up all have their own QD, i'm not using the same one.
 
I don't think you understand what Nuggethead was saying. He's talking about the black quick disconnect on your keg post. Take that thing fully apart. Unscrew the top with a flathead screwdriver. Be careful you don't lose the spring or the little gasket. Make sure it's clear and put it back together.

Only other thing I can think of is maybe you have the out QD on the in post. Do you get spurting foam or air when you open the faucet?
 
no i understood, that's why i said, when i tried to dispense from the 3 different faucets, i used a different black QD each time.. While i have not taken them apart to clean them, I highly doubt all 3 of them are clogged.. and well i know they are not, because i used them on my sanitized water keg, and they pour fine..

i;ve double checked my in's and outs.. they are hooked up correctly. I've taken the liquid dip tube and out and liquid post apart twice now, so I'm 100% sure it's all hooked up right. and yes, if I push down on the out post, beer comes flying out.

when i open the faucet, I just get nothing. the beer line fills up about 2/3, and it just sits there.. i can see the beer in the tube, but it won't come out.. so it is basically acting like it has no pressure behind it to push it out.. but the keg is pressurized, when i pull the pin it spits out co2, and then i hear the tank fill it up again.

this is really bizarre.
 
You haven't mixed up the poppets have you? If you put one that is too short in a tall-post keg, it will still dispense. But, a taller poppet in a shorter post will not dispense or dispense very slowly. Also, the QD's can become stuck, but it seems as though you've addressed this. Other than a kink in the line, I'm not sure what else it could be. Do you have individual regulators? You may have a faulty one for that beer.

I don't know what else... I know it's probably frustrating though. Sorry.
 
no.. good ideas, but still no go. I think i mentioned in the first post, I've taken this keg out of keezer and completely isolated it from my system to try and find out what's going on. So right now I have co2 tank->keg->picnic tap. the most basic system. 1 gas line 1 liquid line. I haven't mixed up any poppets.. from day 1, i've never taken apart more than one keg at a time, and I've never even taken apart the liquid and gas posts on the same keg at the same time.

it's really crazy, cause beer shoots out if I depress poppet.. so beer is right there in the dip tube ready to come out. which makes me want to rule out the keg/co2/regulator or anything before the tap. But on the other hand, I have 3.5' of liquid tubing with a picnic tap (and I've tried different picnic taps with different QD's), so it can't get any more simpler than that to try and troubleshoot this.

tank is at ~12 psi. I've even put the picnic tap at ground level to try and pour.. so gravity isn't even dispensing it.. (there is beer in about 2.5' of the tube)


I have no idea what to do. I have 1 empty keg, I could transfer it. But it's still half full, and it's a great beer, I'd hate to mess it up. considering I can't transfer using beer line and qd's. I could siphon it though... may try and do that tonight.
 
If this keg is new to you and hasn't been used before It could be a post problem. I got a keg with two gas in posts. The black beer connect would seem to snap on but no beer would come out like you. Sometime in the kegs life before I got it it must have gotten switched somehow. The solution was just to use a grey connector for the beer side on this particular keg. Give it a try. Couldn't hurt.
 
Before I took diptube out, I put my gas QD on the beer out, thinking maybe dip tube was clogged, and it was hard to get off.. really hard to get off, thought i was gonna break the QD.
so i'm thinking my beer out post is the correct size for beer, and not a gas one.

I guess I should add, I've drank half this keg, over the holidays. I took the kegs to a party (4 of em), and brought em back. they've sat in garage for about a week, cause I was putting a coat of primer on inside of keezer to cover up rust (it was a CL score).
so everything was working.. it's only now that this one keg is not working. not sure what could have happened. I did freeze some beer about 3 weeks ago when trying to dial in my new temp controller.. so that option crossed my mind when this situation arose, but the beer is clearly liquid, i looked in there and it sloshes around. plus it was in garage for a week, in houston. (lows have been in 40s, my garage is warmer than that) so it's not frozen/slushy. plus it's the highest abv beer i have right now, and the others weren't frozen.
 
Before I took diptube out, I put my gas QD on the beer out, thinking maybe dip tube was clogged, and it was hard to get off.. really hard to get off, thought i was gonna break the QD.
so i'm thinking my beer out post is the correct size for beer, and not a gas one.

I had a keg like this giving me problems a while back and ended up just taking it to my LHBS. Doug spotted instantly that there were chrome-plated zinc posts on the keg ( a product of after market refurb). He said it doesn't seem like a big deal, but that these parts are so custom milled, that even 1 or 2/1000's of an inch can make QD's not fit properly. This is usually what the chrome plating adds. I changed them out for stainless steel posts and haven't had an issue with it since. Compare the finish on the non-working posts with the working posts - you may have chrome.

That being said, I understand it was working until a few weeks ago... I'm thinking of subscribing just to make sure I hear the resolution.

Good Luck!
 
Is the problem with the keg or the faucet? 3 faucets pour fine but the 4th one does not. If you hook the 4th faucet up to one of the other 3 kegs, does the faucet pour correctly?

Just trying to isolate the problem...

I have had the liquid tube spin while tightening the post and spin the end into the curved part of the keg. With the lid off, see if the tube spins as the post is tightened. I cut about 1/2" off of buttom of tube with tube cutter, to solve the problem.
 
SBC.. not sure what you're asking. I have 4 perlicks, they all poured except one. So I pulled that keg out and have been testing it with 2 different picnic taps.. i think you may have misread. The keg is out of the keezer, on my garage floor, with a CO2 tank hooked up directly to it.
As for the tube idea.. again, something i could try, but again, if I push down on the liquid post, beer flies out.. so beer is making it up the tube fine.
 
again you are saying that one of your perlick faucet is not pouring. I was just asking to clarify that it is a keg problem and not a faucet problem. I just want to be clear that faucet #4 pours correctly.

With regards to depressing a poppet and having beer spray out, it does not take much flow to seem like it is a lot. Can you empty this keg and fill with water so we are not wasting hard earned precious beer and go from there?
 
If the two different picnic taps have different connectors that attach to the post and the popup allows beer out when you press it down, it has to be the post.
 
@SBC: while i haven't hooked that specific perlick up to another keg, I have used two different picnic taps (w/ 2 different QD's) to no avail on the troublesome keg.. so I'm not 100% sure the perlick will pour correctly, but I am 100% sure that the keg will not pour after trying 3 different faucets/QD's, so my problem isn't the perlick as of yet. If i can get the keg to pour out of a picnic, then I can hook up to perlick and go from there.

@Shaker, this is what i was thinking, but what exactly could be wrong with it? if I can depress the poppet and get beer, then why can't the QD do the same thing? Makes me think QD is bad, but I've ruled that out by using 3 different ones. Beer spraying out def. rules out a lot of stuff: no pressure, faulty dip tube, clogged dip tube/poppet, etc.. DO i just replace the post with a new one? i've already taken it apart twice.

and, remember, I've poured ~25 pints out of this thing since early dec. with no problems.. what type of problem could arise half way through a keg? something like wrong size post would have been evident from the first pour.
 
By the sounds of it it has to be the post/poppet. Sometimes they can be ever so slightly damaged or bent and not work. I would replace the post and poppet.

How hard do you have to push down the poppet? I can easily push one down with a fingernail.
 
i can push down with finger as well. If i trasnfer beer into new keg and it works, i'll def. replace it and go from there.
 
well this was pretty anti-climatic.

I got home, and again just tried to dispense with picnic tap, see if anything changed. still nothing. Grabbed my other picnic tap/QD, nothing. keg had pressure, and sprayed out of post when i pushed down on poppet.

so, only thing I could do next, put it in another keg. So I do, with a siphon. making sure everything is sanitized. I charged the new keg, popped on picnic tap with QD, and voila: beer.

OK, so back to bunk keg. I wash it out, and fill it with water. I didn't change anything, undo posts, etc.. nothing, just filled it with water, popped on picnic tap QD, same one I just used, and voila.. water came out.

So I've marked this keg, and I'll be sure not to put any ipa's in it in the future, cause it apparently doesn't like dispensing them!

I have no idea what just happened in front of my eyes. but it seems to be fixed. How can a keg not pour beer, so I transfer beer into another keg, then fill old keg with water, and it pours?

Only possible solution would be hop particles clogging the line, but i disassembled it twice, and beer shot out the post when i pushed it down with screwdriver?!?!
I did notice the dip tube went right up against bottom, and even scraped a bit.. so I did cut off about 1/4"... maybe that was it.. maybe not, still doesn't make sense why water but not beer would come out.

In the end, right now I'm in my kitchen, relaxed, and having a homebrew!

And my keezer is for the first time leak free:)
 
...and beer shot out the post when i pushed it down with screwdriver?!?!

Glad everything worked out alright, although the words above made me cringe like nails on a chalk board.

Use something plastic to press down on poppets! :cross: I usually take the guts out of a ball point pen and use the plastic 'shell'. You don't want to risk damaging the lip of the poppet.

Anyways... Cheers!
 
well.. i said screwdriver just for ease of understanding. I used a star shaped driver, it's flat on the bottom.. no scratches, no worries.
 
For what it's worth, I use wooden chopsticks to bleed off pressure...

I was just having a major issue and searched the forums for my answer but didn't find it. I wasn't getting any beer out of my newly tapped corny keg and having done a few now, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally, it dawned on me...the posts on my pin lock cornies were reversed; the gas post (3 prong) was connected to the dip tube and the supply line (2 prong) was connected to the shorter gas dip tube. Yeah, I know, lame of me for not checking when I filled the keg but whatever. I ended up depleting all gas from the keg, popping the lid and confirming my suspicions. I quickly swapped the posts and all was good.

I hope this post helps someone as much as this forum has helped me!

WD
 
Ugh, I'm having the exact same problem. My keg was clogged the other day and I couldn't figure out why. I messed with it, let off the gas, resealed the lid, changed to another picnic tap and jostled it around a bit. For whatever reason it started flowing, I wasn't really sure why but didn't ask alot of questions because the beer was flowing. Anyway, this was at a party. Now I've got the keg back home and there is still about 1/4 of a keg left. I went out to my fridge and once again it wouldn't pour. I've tried 5lbs, 10lbs and 30lbs, nothing will get beer out of it. Similar situation as the OP, my picnic tap hose will fill with beer, but nothing will come out. I've tried multiple taps that are working fine on my other kegs, so I know it isn't the picnic taps or hoses. The keg is holding pressure and the co2 disconnect is working because it is pushing beer through my other keg no problem. I removed the out post and cleaned it out. There was some hop debris in there, but even with it cleaned and replaced it still isn't working... help please!
 
Actually I did pull the dip tube out and blew threw it with no problem. Sanitized it and put it all back together. The dip tube was crooked though so my next move is moving the beer to another keg and trying another dip tube and post. We shall see...
 
I had this same problem recently when I hooked up a new keg which I naturally carbed with priming sugar in the keg and dry hopped in a hop bag in the keg. I had also just replaced my beer lines, so I assumed it had to be something I did when replacing the line. I checked the tap, the tubing, the quick disconnect, the post and poppet, the dip tube and all were fine, but the beer still wouldn't pour. Finally I took the dip tube out and cut about a quarter inch off the bottom of it. Voila, the beer poured perfectly. There must have been enough sediment from naturally carbing and dry hopping to clog the dip tube when it was in place. I have now cut all of my dip tubes since I like to naturally carb my kegs.
 
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