Newbie Foamy Kegerator!

[Spetrill]

Hello Everyone,
I tried to read through to find a solution but nothing I have tried yet has worked.
I have a new kegerator kit with a new co2 tank.
I checked for leaks best I could with soapy water. The level in the tank hasn't changed since I installed it a few days ago.

When I pour I get a spit/bloop ( few sencond air shot) then foam and mostly all foam. I may get 1/4 bear and 3/4 foam.

The keg is Yuengling and I have the temp in the fridge around 30-33 and the I have tried the PSI at a few different levels recommended in the threads.

Right now I have it at 12psi...

I have been going through quite a bit of beer trying to get this thing to work.. Does any one have any suggestions or things I could try to get beer instead of foam out of this kegerator? Thanks!! so so so much!!! I want beer!

[corkybstewart]

First be sure the keg temp has stabilized. Second, be sure you have the right length of beer line. I know diddley squat about store bought kegerators, but with my homemade one temp, hose length and line pressure are the only variables. Maybe your keg has a pressure relief valve. You might have to let some pressure off at first so it stabilizes with your CO2 tank. Good luck, and welcome to the realbeer family.

[Spetrill]

Thanks for the quick reply!
I think I could easily add more length to the line if that is a problem.
I just tried it again and it burps so hard it blew the foam out of my glass!!! crazy!! The beer tasted alright.. I just have to let it sit in the fridge for a while until the foam goes away!


What a pain huh!!

[corkybstewart]

5 feet of 3/16"(inside diameter) hose at 11-13 psi should be right, at the temp you state. I am strictly a homebrewer, so I have no idea how a store bought kegerator and keg interact, but sometimes my homebrew kegs get a little frisky and I have to relieve the pressure on them before they learn to behave. My old cornelius kegs have a pressure relif valve,and sometimes I'll have to hit it a few times before the beer flows properly.

[danno]

Originally posted by Spetrill
When I pour I get a spit/bloop ( few sencond air shot) then foam and mostly all foam. I'm betting you have an inexpensive kegerator with a tower, right? here's your problem. your keg and fridge is at 33º, but your tower is quite a bit warmer, so the co2 that was nicely staying in suspension at 33º is coming out at 45-50º, causing the dreaded spit/bloop. (I love that description)

anyways, you have a couple of options. one, pour pitchers so you get some beer with your foam. two, drink faster so your subsequent beers don't warm up in the line (but this really doesn't help the first pint of the evening). three, increase the pressure a couple of psi to keep the co2 in suspension. (this has a diminishing return though, eventually you'll have a beer fire hose...) four, (and this is the fun one) modify your tower to circulate cold air through it.

good luck, and welcome!

[Spetrill]

Hello and thanks for the replies.. The kegerator I bought is a fridge door mount no the tower.. It feels pretty darn cold when I touch it.
I also forgot to mention that when you look at the beer line it has alot of gaps/spaces with no beer and some bubbles.
Air?

Thanks again!!!

Shawn

[corkybstewart]

How long is the hose from the keg to the tap, and what is the inside diameter? What psi are you using, and are you sure your regulator is working? The more details you can supply the better the answers you'll get.

[danno]

Originally posted by Spetrill
Hello and thanks for the replies.. The kegerator I bought is a fridge door mount no the tower.. It feels pretty darn cold when I touch it.
I also forgot to mention that when you look at the beer line it has alot of gaps/spaces with no beer and some bubbles.
Air?

Thanks again!!!

Shawn turn up the pressure a couple of psi...

[Spetrill]

This is driving me freaking nuts! I have tried everything I could find in forums all over the net.
(thanks for all the suggestions and help)

I am still getting pretty much all foam... it sucks.. I would love to poor a beer and not have the freaking thing spit into my glass and spew beer out of it.
It looks like there is beer in the line.. with a few bubble and air pockets.. but when I pull the tap/handle on the door nothing comes out for a second then wham air/spew noises/ then it burp/spews and then foam foam foam!! arghh!! :) Oh well..

Thanks
Shawn

[Jughead]

... modify your tower to circulate cold air through it.



Or you could cut the beer line going into the tower, replace it with 5 ' of 3/16" beer line and put a cobra picnic tap on the end. You would have to open the door to get at the tap when you want to pour a beer, but it may be better than what you have now.

Bubbles in the beer line are co2 coming out of suspension. Increasing the pressure should eliminate them, but you need resistance to slow the beer. Add resistance by increasing the length of the beer line.

[corkybstewart]

It seems absurd, but increaisng the pressure and using smaller ID beer line helps. I'm using about 14 psi right now and I'm getting good beer out of my taps.

[Spetrill]

I tried a longer line.. shaking and letting out the pressure and starting over and nothing has worked....
The darn thing is still foam foam foam..

The beer line had huge pockets of air with no beer in it. Is that normal? also the beer that doesn't come out as foam has bubble in it like champagne..

Is it possible that the kegerator kit I ordered is hosed..
Or is there anything else I might could try..

Thanks!!! Shawn

[521scottd]

Originally posted by Spetrill

The beer line had huge pockets of air with no beer in it. Is that normal? also the beer that doesn't come out as foam has bubble in it like champagne..

Is it possible that the kegerator kit I ordered is hosed..
Or is there anything else I might could try..

Thanks!!! Shawn

Air in the line like that makes me think that your applied pressure is still to low. I'm betting the CO2 is bubbling out of the beer in the line. The pockets of air cause lots of foaming when the beer trailing the air pockets hits the shanks and faucets. When you let out the pressure it will return to normal very quickly as the gas escapes the beer, unless you left it open to the air unsealed which I would not recommend. It will reduce your carbination but it would take many repeated purges of this type to actually make it go flat and you're still getting air pockets so I'm betting its still a problem. However, if you turn up your pressure to compensate your pour rate will be to high and the turbulence when the beer hits the glass will cause foaming too. I've seen many people on this forum note that comercial kegs are harder to balance than homebrew and I'd wager that this confluence of problems is why.


You mentioned you got a longer beer line, how long is it? Have you tried to contact the bar/distributor that you purchased the keg from to find the recommended applied pressure or the volume of CO2 that beer has in solution?

When I had this problem my solution was to use alot more line than recommended (I assume 2lb/foot resistance instead of 3 for 3/16 line) at a slightly higher applied pressure than recommended. The beer will get slighty more carbonated that way but I didn't really notice it and it solved the foaming issue.

[Spetrill]

I tried quite a few different line sizes and called tha company that sold it and they recommended 8-10 psi..

First let me thank everyone for all the tips and advice.. But I am still having no luck at all.
Something really screwy is going on here. I even borrorwed a neighbors keg to make sure it wasn't my keg. Same problems..
I tried quite a few different line sizes and called the company that sold it and they recommended 8-10 psi.. they also couldn't help with the problem.

What it is still doing beside pooring pure foam is when ever you pull the handle it spits has a huge gasp of air then spits foam , then a nice foam stream comes out.
Most of the line is air and bubbles with sopt of nice looking beer that I would love to have in my glass but that never happens!! :)
Could something actually be broken. It does this no matter what the psi is on the co2.
I was thing of calling to see if the place I got this would replace any parts if something was actually broken.

Thanks again for the help!!!

[toneyc]

It is starting to sound like you've got something kinked or a restriction in your sankey assembly.

:eek:
Toney.

[Spetrill]

When you say kinked do you mean in the line to the keg(co2) or from the keg (beer line).

So maybe the sankey is hosed? It is kind of strange it seems like I can tighten the big nut on the sankey forever I feel like if I keep turning it it will break something..

Maybe it is messed up... the c02 never drops in pressure or anything and all my temps are exactly where ther should be.

Thanks!
Shawn

Here is a link to a few pics of my kegerator setup..

http://www.monkeysuncle.com/beer

Thanks again for the help!

[Jughead]

Is it just me or does that beer line look kind of fat? Is it 3/16" id, or something larger?

Nice setup by the way.

[toneyc]

Holy smokes! Yeah, that looks like 5/16" or better. There's yer problem.

:)
Toney.

[mikemessink]

I have a a somewhat related question. I was going to start a new thread, but it's somewhat along the lines of this one.

I have a new kegerator setup in a chest freezer. Currently have 2 5 gallon kegs running. One sanke microbrew, one corney homebrew. 5 feet of 3/16 ID beer line running off each one.

My problem is that I get about 2 inches of air (or CO2 more accurately) collecting right where the beer line leaves the coupler on both kegs. It's worse on the sanke keg. So when that air hits the faucet, I get a spurt of foam, and the glass ends up about 1/3 foam. The problem doesn't seem as bad on the Corney, which seems to balance at a lower PSI.

I know it's not ideal having 2 different types of kegs on the same system, but that's what I'm stuck with. I started keeping it up around 10-12 PSI, but was getting pretty aggressive pours of the sankey, even when I'd release some pressure first. Lately I've been keeping it closer to 5-8 PSI. The corney pour is slow, but not real foamy. The sankey pour is still foamy cause the the little bit of air in the line.

Any suggestions?

[Spetrill]

The line is actually 3/16 d on the inside the outside of the line is alot bigger so it looks like the line is huge. It is really thick.
The longer line I bought was thinner on the outside.

The line in the picture is what they sent with the kit.

I am thinking that something equipment wise is screwed up I am going to call the beverage warehouse and see if I can get them to swap it out with a new setup. IT's worth a shot.

I messed around with it again last night. No luck. No matter what the psi is. I releive the pressure with the release valve and as soon as I turn the c02 back on and pur it starts spewing out air then foam again..! IT's crazy. Even with it really low like 2-4 it spits enough air to blast beer(actually foam bubbles) out of the glass. I have huge pockets of air in the beer line.

oh yeah thanks for the compliment on my setup.

Thanks
Shawn

[Jughead]

Originally posted by mikemessink
...I know it's not ideal having 2 different types of kegs on the same system, but that's what I'm stuck with. ...Any suggestions?

You can run different length beer lines from each keg. Increase the pressure again to get rid of the bubbles in the lines, and then increase the line length on the keg that pours too fast.

[Spetrill]

I treid a few more thing tonight and it was strange as usual.
When I turned off the co2 and poured it would still make crazy air sounds and nothing would come out then foam would make it's way out.
It would do this until I emptied out all the co2 I suppose, then it would stop of course.

At that point I opened the tap and started turning the c02 up really slow from 0 .
It would shot spats of air out through the line off and on until is would become a constant stream of foam when I got up to about 5 psi and continue to be foam from then on.
Any point after that if I closed the tap and poured again it would do it's normal spitting and spewing before dispensing foam.

I think I am going to just call the beverage warehouse and ask them to send me a replacement.. Doe that seem like the right idea? Thanks!

Shawn

[grantwh]

Shawn,

I feel your pain. Really I do. I purchased a Frigidaire Kegerator (http://www.beveragefactory.com/refrigerators/beer/plku1267ds.shtml). I had a party back on March 11, 2006. It was a huge success partially thanks to the Kegerator. We floated the keg that night and it sat dormant for about a month. I turned the CO2 tank off.

Finally, I replaced that Yeungling Keg with another Yeungling keg. With bated breath, I hooked the thing up and pulled the handle. It poured about an inch of beer in my glass and stopped. I went into a sweat and wondered what I had done. After looking over the instructions and pulling my hair out, I realized that even though I had turned the valve on the canister, I had failed to turn on the shutoff valve on the Regulator. Once I remedied that problem, the new one started. I pulled the handle and the "sneeze" happened (or spit/bloop as you say). I have been in misery since. I have gone the extent that I have no longer invited people over to show the thing off.

I have read the manual several times about "wild beer." My latest attempt (aside from this forum) is to get a local distributor delivery man help me clean the line and regulate the pressure and air. I will let you know how that attempt pans out.

All my symptoms are identical to yours. I was relieved to hear that replacing the keg didn't solve it. I wasn't wanting to waste beer. Someone please tell me what crime against God and humanity that we have committed that has put us in the predicament!

[Beer Monkey]

I had a bunch of similiar problems there are a bunch of threads about the same topic and what it tends to work out to is there is a math formula that goes along with the length of hose and the air pressure and the temp of the keg. if those 3 aren't right then you will get alot of head and no beer. sadly to much head isn't as fun as it sounds.

[Miles267]

Hi, ironically I've been dealing w/ a similar issue. Hoped the experts here could assist. Recently purchased a fairly inexpensive Nostalgia Electrics KRS-2100 kegorator with tower tap. Seems I initially get a significant amount of foam (on first pour) until the tower becomes cold. The KRS-2100 ships with a 2.5 lb. CO2 tank and regulator, however the regulator only has a single gauge measuring PSI level of the CO2 tank itself (which measures 500 PSI constant when cold inside kegorator). I notice the others here have 2 separate gauges, one for co2 tank pressure level and the other for co2 line pressue (which can be adjusted?). Are there any online vendors from which I can purchase a better regulator? Am guessing I also need a longer 3/16 diameter hose, but I don't want to alter too many variables at once, at least until I have a better handle on the co2 line pressure.

Seems I started out w/ foam until the barrel settled and got to a temp of ~ 35-40F (difficult to keep constant, shouldn't be much of an issue). Now I'm getting moderate foam followed by "flat" beer (Miller Lite, first keg). Took ~ 3 weeks before it flattened out.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
Jason

[zoom6zoom]

Seems I initially get a significant amount of foam (on first pour) until the tower becomes cold.

A different regulator or pressure won't do much in this situation. As noted in an earlier post, the first pour foaming is due to the higher temp in the tower. Finding a way to cool the interior of the tower is the best way to fix this.

[Beerisgood3]

As discussed, there are only a few variables to kegerators. Pressure, beer line length, beer line diameter. One not mentioned is the cleanliness of the beer line. When i built my kegerator a month or two back, i cleaned the beer line with Beer Line Cleaner, and rinsed with ample amounts of fresh water. Chemical residue/dust/whatever in the beer line from the factory could cause foaming.

Other than that, like everyone said. Standard kegerator: 5' of 3/16" Inner Diameter beer line, regulator set to 10-12 psi (this is a guideline).

Also, when you're tweaking the pressure, give it a while to settle. Turning it up, waiting two minutes, and trying to pour again isn't letting it settle. Wait a few hours if possible (this may be over-kill).

Also, given the amount of tweaking you've done with the pressure, i'd definately pull the relief valve on the coupler to empty the keg of all the extra pressure in it. Make sure you turn your CO2 off first.


Sorry to hear about your issues.

[Miles267]

I've sinced acquired a new co2 regulator simply because the one that came w/ my factory kegorator kit only measured co2 tank pressure and didn't allow me to adjust co2 in the gas line itself. I also picked up the correct diameter vinyl gas line tubing since it was inexpensive. However it appears the factory beer line is only ~ 3-4 ft. in length 5/16" ID tubing (probably closer to 3 ft.) and can't be easily replaced w/o replacing the factory tower. They shipped the kit w/ a cheap hose connectors on both the tower and coupler ends, that almost appears give the appearance of the tower-hose-coupler nut being one connected piece.

Was trying to figure out how many PSI would be recommended on this setup before I tap my next brand new Miller Lite keg. It's sitting in the unit refrigerating as I type. Trying to get it down to a steady 38-40F if the thermostat will allow to do so (I have a instant therm in a cup of water sitting on top of the keg covered with a piece of plastic wrap to prevent evaporation).

[Beerisgood3]

Wait, so did you actually replace the beer line with 5' 3/16th ID tubing? I got confused after you said "can't be easily replaced w/o replacing the factory tower.

If the beer line the sent you is actually ~3 ft and 5/16th ID this is 100% chance, absolutely, positively the reason for all of your problems. You MUST replace it with the 5' 3/16th ID line. It may be a major PITA to get the hose off of the tower end or whatever you described, but it's the only way you'll have a working kegerator. There are equations and such to "balance" a kegerator with varying tube sizes and stuff (i don't know them, but try to search for them if you're commited to keeping your current beer line), but you don't want to mess with them, especially at the expense of ruining another keg. Also, whoever you bought your kegerator kit or kegerator from is not very knowledgable. I wouldn't do business with them again.

5' of 3/16th ID beer line at 10-12 PSI and ~38-42 F temp is a tried a true combo for a working kegerator with 99% of macro beers. Once you do replace your beer line, start at 10, pour a few beers with it, give it time to balance, and if it's pouring too slowly for you, turn it up 1 PSI at a time.

[Mill Rat]

Originally posted by Beerisgood3
You MUST replace it with the 5' 3/16th ID line. It may be a major PITA to get the hose off of the tower end or whatever you described, but it's the only way you'll have a working kegerator. Or get to a local hardware and pick up two barbed fitting 3/16" plastic splicers and four hose clamps, cut the existing hose in the middle and add two feet to it. And put the hose clamps on it.

[Beerisgood3]

Originally posted by Mill Rat
Or get to a local hardware and pick up two barbed fitting 3/16" plastic splicers and four hose clamps, cut the existing hose in the middle and add two feet to it. And put the hose clamps on it.

Nay. He said that he had 5/16th ID, splicing in a few feet of 3/16th id in the middle would be about the worst thing ever.

However, you're correct that he may need to go pick up a pair of 3/1th barbed fittings for the shank and the coupler and a few 3/16ths plastic clamps.

[Mill Rat]

I misread his post and replied before I had consumed enough coffee to act responsibly. I'd splice in enough 5/16" hose to get the right pressure drop. I'm still at work so I don't have my tables handy.

[Miles267]

Thanks for the advice, guys. Turns out, I just opted to replace my tower with one from beveragefactory.com that will ship with the 5/16" ID tubing included. The tower and parts that have come w/ my home kegorator kit have been consistently cheap (already replaced the regulator w/ a 2 gauge version), so it was the safest bet to ensure it's done right.

[BrewDog]

Miles-

Just for complete clarity I will spell out the numbers here so that I do not have any typos and you understand the numbers you need-

You NEED three-sixteenths inside diameter beer line. You DO NOT want five-sixteenths. Five-sixteenths is too wide for the temperature, pressure, and distances within a typical kegerator. Five-Sixteenths will not provide enough fluid resistance to counter the beer's pressure, so the beer will come out foaming uncontrollably.

Five (or even better six so you can cut it down a couple inches at a time until you get a perfect match) feet of three-sixteenths inside diameter beer line is what you want to order with the tower. Anything else will cause a foam volcano.

Hope this helps-

[Miles267]

Brewdog, my apologies, I transposed the IDs for the beer vs. co2 lines. Here's the tower I purchased since my kegorator appears to be ~ 2.5 inches at the top of the tower (when I remove the tower cap and measure across). Only the tower mine shipped with is junk. Hope this helps clarify. Sorry for the confusion.

http://www.beveragefactory.com/draftbeer/towers/singlefaucet/D4740.shtml

[BrewDog]

See why I spelled out the numbers as words now? :D

That's perfect-

I got a lot of my stuff at the Beverage Factory for my kegerator, too. They have some good deals if you search for them.

HTH-