End of a keg question

[tominboston]

I thought my keg was empty and it was close but when I opened it up to clean it seemed there was maybe two beers or 1 and a half left. My son said he tried to pour while I was traveling and couldn’t get anything.
So I tried, cranked the pressure up some and tried again. Nothing. So I went ahead and opened it dumped the little remains and put some water and pbw in and shook it up. So then I reconnected the gas and found again it would not flow, so I cranked up to about 15 psi and it started slow then resumed normally. I did not notice anything coming out that looked like sludge.

Just curious if there is some actions I should take if / when this happens again?
When I dumped it the inside looked clean as a whistle. It was a dead ringer IPA so there were lots of hops involved.
Not sure where the problem was, I do use a picnic tap with about 5 ft of beer line which I had left connected while I was gone.

[sneezles61]

Hopefully you have the threaded connections… Put the gas to the liquid out, give it a blast… that should blow the snot out of the liquid tube… Easy peasy! Sneezles61

[tominboston]

That’s a great idea , thank you.
I don’t have threaded connections but I have enough spare parts I will build a short " de-cloganator " line.

I dumped the remainder on my driveway so I could look at it when it dried and there was a fair amount of sediment floating in there.

[sneezles61]

I have a 50/50 mix, and a few weeks ago, I came to the conclusion, threaded fittings is the way to go… Another brewer has ball lock while I have pin lock… With threaded fittings, I doesn’t take much change them then… Sneezles61

[brew_cat]

Disconnect may be clogged

[sneezles61]

Another pliable answer too! Sneezles61

[loopie_beer]

It’s common for a little beer to remain after the keg has kicked. A lot depends on where the dip tube stops. It will take a lot more pressure to push out the last bit if you took off the gas and opened it.

Now comes cleaning. Best thing I ever did was buy a marks keg/carboys washer.

[wilcolandzaat]

I do use heineken sankey keg The dip tube all most to the bottom of the keg. Can get the keg all the way empty. Downfall. Once closed and carbonated. Thats it. And in the beginning hard to open. If you are new to sankey kegs

[WMNoob]

I use both pin lock and ball lock. Usually there is very little beer left in my kegs so two pints seems like a lot of leftover IMHO. At the most I think I have less than a quarter cup when they kick. In the past, I felt like one of mine wasn’t dispensing all it could so I did a little adjustment on the dip tube by bending it to reach a little further into the depression in the bottom of the keg. You should take a look to make sure yours is being all it can be. Pretty easy to reach in and give it a little “gentle persuasion”.

One other thing I’ve noticed is that the keg will appear clean as a whistle yet there’s a fine layer of easily removed yeast (?) coating the inside especially on the bottom. As far as pluggage, I’ve had hop particles plug up the poppets and disconnects. Reversing the connections a la your de-clogginator usually fixes the issue although you may still end up with suspended particles and reclog. As a relative newb, one thing I’ve noticed is there are a lot of moving parts which makes this so much fun. Brew on brother!

[tominboston]

Great advice thank you! I will check my dip tube position. I do have the keg sitting with some water and PBW as I thought it may be too good to be true that it was so clean in appearance. I am going to wash it later today and then pump some sanitizer through it. Should be filling it with my Kama citra in another week or two.

[sneezles61]

IF the dip tube is short, you can find a piece of plastic tubing to add on to the end to get it to the bottom… Sneezles61

[tominboston]

Another great idea! How close to the bottom dare I go?

[sneezles61]

You can leave it an 1/8"… Seems as you pull brews out, the yeast will collect and stick around the bottom. Where the tube draws from, an area, about an 1" around it will be clean… Practice with water or cleaner first to get what you feel is good. Sneezles61

[hd4mark]

I did exactly that when I swapped a pin lock dip tube into a ball lock keg. Since the pin locks are shorter it didn’t get close to the bottom so a piece of tubing did the trick. Why I needed a new dip tube I don’t remember.

[Steve]

I found this dip tube brush to be helpful. You can also remove the post fittings from the keg, remove the poppets from the fittings and make sure everything is completely clean before refilling.

[tominboston]

Thanks, looks pretty handy. A little bit like a rifle barrel cleaning rod and brush.