barleywine poppet plugged...

[mordantly]

my poppet plugged with hop debris. tapped it, put 60 psi at it.. nothing will dislodge the block. since i need to take the post off, i'm thinking of just removing both beer side poppets (picnic tap in my fridge.. but not gas so i can disconnect) and rock it! besides not being able to remove the beer discon without an expensive shower, any other reason i shouldn't do this? i can't think of any.

[keelanfish]

I only have one poppet on the beer side. What do you mean by both?

You might try hooking the gas up to the beer side and venting the keg a but to see if you can clear the blockage in reverse. If not, I guess taking it apart is your only option...unless you have an extra keg laying around. You may be able to accomplish a closed transfer by hooking gas to the beer side, beer to the gas side and flipping the keg upside down. Never tried it, but it might work. Good luck.

[mordantly]

inside the corny disconnect is a poppet as well in order to maintains it's self-sealing feature when removed from the post. i just figure since i need to vent and remove the post then clean and starsan it all, i might as well just ditch the poppet. since it could get clogged again requiring more rounds of cleaning until the pellet debris is out. transferring would also be a PITA only in the sense that i try not to create situations that i can contaminate my beer if i can help it. also if i have this keg of ~13% bw tapped for a few years, i'm causing wear to both springs. probably negligible when compared to 12 psi that it would need to hold back, but what the eff.. i hate wearing things out for not reason. (think burning your clutch disc). both co2 tanks are dead so i can't monkey with it for a few days..

[EagleDude]

I have had similar problems with both dry hopped IIPA's and with a Janet's brown. Isn't always a problem. but sometimes a real issue ... especially since it happened last time when I took a full keg out camping and had no other beer options.

Solutions everytime (with a variable amount of messing with it) was to take the ball lock off and poke the poppet multiple times and at varying depths until I was able to loosen the "hop block" enough to blow through. You know it is a success when your face is met with a forcefull spray of beer. . Sometimes I have to repeat the process a few times, but it has always eventually been successful.

[mordantly]

... poke the poppet multiple times and at varying depths until I was able to loosen the "hop block" enough to blow through. You know it is a success when your face is met with a forcefull spray of beer. ..

i have gotten this beer shower when a poppet failed to close after successful un-docking. in the woods i could see blipping it and spraying a few oz's to clear the blockage else it will be a dry weekend.

[spiderwrangler]

You might try hooking the gas up to the beer side and venting the keg a but to see if you can clear the blockage in reverse.

I believe I've heard of this being successful...

[troybinso]

Can't you just release all the gas, remove the beer out post, and give the post and poppet a quick rinse?

[Bugeater]

Can't you just release all the gas, remove the beer out post, and give the post and poppet a quick rinse?

You should probably pull the dip tube too and run a dip tube brush through it to clear any blockages. (and of course re-sanitize everything.)

Wayne