I've had an Insignia 5.6 cu.ft. kegerator for about a year and a half now and haven't had any problems. I've regularly been getting Yuengling from a local beer distributor and pushing around 10psi and its always been perfect. I always flush out the lines and hardware between kegs. Towards the end of February I got a new keg and from the start is seemed a little off, a little bitter and seemed over-carbonated. I gave it some time to settle down and it seemed to be been getting better slowly. Today, all of a sudden it stopped flowing beer almost entirely. It just coughs and puts small amounts of foam. I'm still get good consistent pressure from the CO2 tank so I took all the hardware apart to make sure nothing was obstructing it, cleaned it out again, and reassembled only to get the same results. At this point I'm thinking something is wrong with the keg internally. I called the distributor I got it from but (no surprise) being over a month since I got it, they said they can't do anything for me now. Did I just get a crap keg or is there something I am possibly missing here?
Check the lines to make sure nothing is frozen, and shake the keg around to see if you hear slush. Also check that the duckbill hasn't become glued closed.
These, to me, are the most important two sentences in your post. Since you are spitting foam, here is a first take at troubleshooting. First, remove the coupler from the keg and examine it. Shake it up and down. Do you hear the check ball rattling up and down in the valve body? Usually when a check ball sticks in the coupler, no beer will flow. Still, it never hurts to check. Next, engage the coupler to ensure that there is a good flow of CO2. Simply lower the lever and observe the gas flow. It should produce a good steady stream. If the system passes the first two tests, turn off the CO2 supply while the coupler is still engaged. Look at the bottom of the coupler and you should see two rubber washers. The large bottom seal circles the coupler and should be obvious. The probe which enters the keg also has a seal (oddly enough referred to as the probe seal) and ensures no extraneous gas enters the system. Occasionally this seal will come off during cleaning or can stick in the previous keg. Report back your observations and we can go from there...
