One of two taps are not pushing beer. Picnic tap

[pricelessbrewing]

So I'm trying to have two things on tap right now.

One is a cherry backsweetened cider. Small issue with that, the cherry concentrate appears to have cold crashed to the bottom of the cider. Pour 4 glasses, and took OG as they appeared signifincalty redder than I expected. Gravity was respectively, 1.093, 1.06x, 1.04x, 1.035, and 1.023. So slowly approaching the expected 1.013 ish.

Second is an oatmeal stout. Now this one is not coming out of the tap at all. Tried purging headspace, recarbing headspace and pushing lines, nope. Replaced disconnect. Nope. Tried different gas in disconnect. Nope. Pressed down on beer out disconnect, beer shot out. Picnic tap, it definitely opens when it should via visual inspection. I'm thinking something is going wrong at the post+poppet/beer out disconnect meeting point.


Any ideas, specifically on how to keep the cider from crashing the sugar out again, or why the stout isn't coming out of the picnic tap?

 

[day_trippr]

Is this the same picnic tap so we can rule it out as the root cause?

If you've never used that balky keg before, it's possible it's been fitted with too stiff a poppet spring and it's overwhelming the spring-loaded plunger in the QD.

If this is a used keg, often what you'll find (after depressurizing the keg and removing the Out post) is a so-called "universal poppet" with a coil spring behind it. As post heights vary widely the spring really isn't "universal", and may need to be trimmed for shorter posts (eg: classic Firestone posts)...

Cheers!

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Is this the same picnic tap so we can rule it out as the root cause?

If you've never used that balky keg before, it's possible it's been fitted with too stiff a poppet spring and it's overwhelming the spring-loaded plunger in the QD.

If this is a used keg, often what you'll find (after depressurizing the keg and removing the Out post) is a so-called "universal poppet" with a coil spring behind it. As post heights vary widely the spring really isn't "universal", and may need to be trimmed for shorter posts (eg: classic Firestone posts)...

Cheers!

I feel confident it's not the picnic taps fault. There is clearly a gap between the valve and the beer line when the tap is open. However I have not tried swapping them out, as it was rather difficult to force the line onto the plastic shank of the tap.

I dissassembled the posts and cleaned them, it's probable that I put the wrong poppet in the post. I'll try swapping that out with another one. How do I do that not that the beers carbed and kegged? Purge the keg first, then just detach the post? Is beer going to explode out the dip tube?

 

[day_trippr]

lol! Depressurize the keg. If you have a manual PRV on the lid that can be locked open, do so. Once you've done that you can safely remove the Out post.

Don't bang the keg around through all this, that'll just piss it off

Cheers!

 

[pricelessbrewing]

lol! Depressurize the keg. If you have a manual PRV on the lid that can be locked open, do so. Once you've done that you can safely remove the Out post.

Don't bang the keg around through all this, that'll just piss it off

Cheers!

Thanks I'll give swapping the out poppets a go.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

So I took the posts and poppets apart. No such luck. Swapped the beer line and picnic tap with the working keg. It worked, but the previously working one stopped working.

Conclusion: Beer line, disconnect, or picnic tap isn't right.

Took apart beer line assembly. Picnic tap is completely closed on the shank (there's no hole in the plastic shank part).

Going to lhbs to swap out.

 

[day_trippr]

So much for that confidence thing

Cheers!