We are a new brewery soon to be opening and we are kegging our first batches of beer. The brite tank is 3 BBLs and we use a carb stone. We carb for 3 days at around 35 degrees and transfer to kegs using a GW Kent ProLine filler. The pressure of the kegs is right around the same pressure that's being applied to the bright tank. For those not familiar with the GW Kent filler, it automatically bleeds out CO2 from the keg as needed to maintain a steady transfer of beer with minimal foaming.
The first keg goes really well, and fills in about 5-10 minutes, and the keg filler seems to be working exactly as it's supposed to. The second keg goes a little slower, taking 10-15 minutes. After that, the transfer slows down to a crawl. The first few kegs we fill are half barrel for in-house use, then we fill sixtels for distribution. By the end, the sixtels take around 30 minutes each to fill.
Last night the issue worsened. Again, the first two kegs filled at an okay pace. After that, the third keg got partially filled and then seemed to stall out completely. I can feel the little pinhole on the keg filler just barely pushing out CO2 from the keg, but no beer is flowing in. I disconnected that keg and tried another keg, just to see what would happen. Same thing. It was a trickle, and then appeared to completely stall out.
I disconnected the hose from the keg filler and opened up the brite tank valve, and the beer came shooting out like a fire hose, so there was no issue with that being clogged or lacking pressure to force out beer. I also looked at the keg filler and can see right through the hole where the beer would flow into the keg, so no issue there either. I hooked it all back up and tried again. Same issue.
The last thing I did was an experiment. I took a sixtel and bled it completely so that there was no pressure left in it. I hooked up the filler, turned the valve to about a quarter open, and beer flowed in. I slowly opened the valve more and more until it was fully open and I could visibly see, on the sight glass, that beer was flowing in at a very fast rate. The keg was about half full (and no doubt foamy as all heck) when it stopped flowing again. I disconnected the filler and threw on a regular coupler and removed the pressure in the keg again (the keg filler doesn't have a bleeder valve). Re-attached the filler and opened it up all the way. Beer flowed again, and then stalled out again at about 3/4 full. I kept on doing this until the keg was full, no doubt flattening out my beer in the process.
Does anyone have ANY idea what is causing this? Or any further questions? We have to keg again in 3 days, and I'm afraid we'll run into the same issue. Thanks in advance!
The first keg goes really well, and fills in about 5-10 minutes, and the keg filler seems to be working exactly as it's supposed to. The second keg goes a little slower, taking 10-15 minutes. After that, the transfer slows down to a crawl. The first few kegs we fill are half barrel for in-house use, then we fill sixtels for distribution. By the end, the sixtels take around 30 minutes each to fill.
Last night the issue worsened. Again, the first two kegs filled at an okay pace. After that, the third keg got partially filled and then seemed to stall out completely. I can feel the little pinhole on the keg filler just barely pushing out CO2 from the keg, but no beer is flowing in. I disconnected that keg and tried another keg, just to see what would happen. Same thing. It was a trickle, and then appeared to completely stall out.
I disconnected the hose from the keg filler and opened up the brite tank valve, and the beer came shooting out like a fire hose, so there was no issue with that being clogged or lacking pressure to force out beer. I also looked at the keg filler and can see right through the hole where the beer would flow into the keg, so no issue there either. I hooked it all back up and tried again. Same issue.
The last thing I did was an experiment. I took a sixtel and bled it completely so that there was no pressure left in it. I hooked up the filler, turned the valve to about a quarter open, and beer flowed in. I slowly opened the valve more and more until it was fully open and I could visibly see, on the sight glass, that beer was flowing in at a very fast rate. The keg was about half full (and no doubt foamy as all heck) when it stopped flowing again. I disconnected the filler and threw on a regular coupler and removed the pressure in the keg again (the keg filler doesn't have a bleeder valve). Re-attached the filler and opened it up all the way. Beer flowed again, and then stalled out again at about 3/4 full. I kept on doing this until the keg was full, no doubt flattening out my beer in the process.
Does anyone have ANY idea what is causing this? Or any further questions? We have to keg again in 3 days, and I'm afraid we'll run into the same issue. Thanks in advance!
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