Kegerator Foam...Again, please help!

[Colo Keg Head]

Even after reading through everyone's suggestions on this forum to eliminate excessive foam from my newly purchased kegerator, I continue to get excessive (and I mean excessive...) foam when I pour.

Here's my situation...1/4 barrel of beer, 39-40 degrees, 5' of 3/16" ID. If I run it at any pressure even slightly over 5 PSI, incredible, undrinkable, wasteful foam comes out.

I did dial my pressure down to where it barely registered on my gauge, and it poured at a more normal and typical flow, although it tasted good that day, it seemed like the beer was getting flat in the 2-3 days that followed, so then I adjusted the pressure to 10 PSI. After one day at that pressure, the beer became the wildest it had been and eventually, after several pitchers of pure head, belched out it's last gasp of beer and left me with nothing but tears in my empty glass. I got this keg less than a week ago and it is already gone! Too much head...

Should I bleed the keg prior to tapping it to know for certain exactly how much pressure is in there?

If I have the pressure on my regulator at 2-5 PSI, will the beer go flat?

I called the brewery (New Belgium Brewing Company, Fort Collins, CO) directly to find out their suggested settings for my beloved Sunshine Wheat Beer and there would be no way I could get any beer if I used their numbers (17 PSI at 6' of line with 3/16" ID, 38 degrees).

Help! I bought this thing to enjoy good, fresh beer and to save money as my wife and I usually go through a case per week. She's wondering why we're out of beer. So am I...

I didn't think this would be all that difficult, I just want to pull the handle and get a beer like the real bartenders do! I hate experimenting with liquid gold (beer) and wasting it. Although I don't want to, I'm tempted to get a lousy keg of Bud Light so I don't wash all of the good stuff down the drain.

Please, please, please, suggestions and help are greatly appreciated.

[wild]

I had a similar problem with a half keg of Dos Eques Dark. So the steps I took were:
1. Set CO2 regulator to 3#.
2. Burp (bleed) keg.
3. Pour beer.
4. If there are lulls in each tap of the keg, give it a quick burp.
5. At the end of the drinking, raise the pressure to 10 – 15#s.
6. Next drinking day go to step 1.

W

[fretlessman71]

Finally... a decent use of a keg full of Butt Light - a CO2 tester! Brilliant! :D

[danno]

You're opening the faucet all the way, right?

the only other thing I can imagine (from this comment "I did dial my pressure down to where it barely registered on my gauge, and it poured at a more normal and typical flow" is that you've got a bad regulator or you got beer into the regulator (which wrecked it). Do you have a check valve?

[Colo Keg Head]

I just got back from the brewery, where they supplied me with another keg of Sunshine (free of charge) because they hated to see me struggle with the excessive foam problem!

Here's what the brewery suggested (in lay terms)...increase, yes increase, the pressure on the CO2 starting at 18 PSI, then 20, then 22 until the foam decreases. Their reasoning...

1. If there is not enough pressure in the keg, then the CO2 will start "fallling out" of the beer and showing up in the form of foam. Hence the higher the pressure, the better the CO2 "stays" in the beer.

2. Last week, one of the brewery people gave me the ideal pressure for serving the keg at sea level, which is 16-18 PSI. However, I'm at 5000 feet where the guy today said the pressure should be greater to make up for the altitude difference.

I looked at their gauge in the tasting room of the brewery and sure enough, they were running at 20 PSI. I haven't tapped the new one yet until I clean the line but will keep you posted on the results.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks again for the input.

[the4th]

I'm not far from Sea Level here in Houston, Texas and I run 6 ft of 3/16 line at 12-13 lbs and get PERFECT pours. The first pour of the day is usually just a tiny bit foamy due to the taps being warm but quickly adjust. I'll normally run 1/3 glass of beer, let the tap cool, then draw a fresh glass.

I can't imagine your levels needing to be set as high as they are suggesting. I'd definitely try another regulator.

[Colo Keg Head]

Thanks for the input from the4th...I will definitely look into the regulator if this new keg gets as wild as the last. I bought the regulator "used" so I don't really know it's background. I think I owe it to the brewery though, to try it at their recommended levels as they supplied me the free keg.

Does it not make sense that the CO2 "leaves the beer" if the CO2 levels are too low? It made sense to me when he explained it. I know it's a brewery, but they were sure pouring very nice glasses today at 20 PSI.

By the way, yes Danno, I make sure I'm opening the faucet all the way and quickly closing it as well.

I tightened up a lot of the connections on the draft arm tonight and will clean the tap, faucet and line tomorrow. I will then call for a drum roll and eagerly tap my 2nd keg in 1 week, hopefully with this keg, I net more than just two decent buzzes!!!!

[toneyc]

Yes, it does make sense, see this link:

http://www.angelfire.com/ks2/beer/homekeg.html

Nate and DrunkPenguin were having this problem earlier this month. Use a longer (10-12 feet x 3/16) beer line at 20 psi.

:)
Toney.

[danno]

Colo keg head, I really do look forward to your findings with the higher pressure. It seems to go against some of what I've taken as fact, so some real life experience will be interesting.

I'm also wary of some of the advice in Toney's link, there's a couple of errors I saw, some half-truths too...

Does it not make sense that the CO2 "leaves the beer" if the CO2 levels are too low? It made sense to me when he explained it. Well, I think there's other factors involved, notably temperature where you're serving. The main thing to remember from physics is that a closed system (like a keg, gas line, beer line system) will seek equilibrium. That's how beer gets carbonated, your headspace and beer will have the same pressure (after absorption).

Now, another thing we know is at a higher temperature, it takes more pressure to keep co2 in suspension. (Here's a handy carbonation chart (http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.1/millertable.html) to see what temps do to co2 volumes) This is what I think is the crux of the issue. A person's tap is usually at a higher temperature than their storage, so at a lower pressure, your co2 is coming out of suspension.

So you basically have two possible solutions, increase the pressure to counteract the co2 coming out of suspension at your warm point (the downfall of this is you'll end up with beer that is more carbonated or fizzier, plus you'll need more beer line to provide resistance, so your beer doesn't come shooting out your tap like a fire hose), or to cool your shank and faucet (which will require some cooling mechanism). I'm not a fizzy beer fan (most of my beers are at or below their carbonation levels for the particular styles), so my advice would be to focus on cooling your shank and faucet...

[Colo Keg Head]

For those of you who care, I finally had a successful ending to my foamy beer issue on my kegerator. This is what I did:

1. Added more restriction to my 5' beer line so it now totals 9'. This really helped cut back on excessive suds especially at the elevation I'm at in Colorado (5000'). My beer line pro buddy said most retail purchased kegerators are set up for sea level where 5' of line is ok, but that we need 9-10' of line for the proper restriction at elevation.

2. Drilled my shank to 3/8". The shank originally wasn't quite this wide and I think the larger opening also helped eliminate excessive foam. Just make sure you rinse out the shank well enough after you drill so you don't encounter any crunchy metallic flakes in your beer in the first pour or two.

3. I am pretty sure my regulator is not accurate, therefore, I have the pressure set just to the point where small bubbles in my beer no longer form in my beer line. I got to this point by incrementally bumping up the pressure until there were no bubbles and the beer poured well. The guage reads 8 psi but my beer line pro buddy thinks it's probably more like 12-14 psi judging from the pour rate. I don't like tweeking the pressure too much so if I have problems with this method, I will invest in another regulator, but I think we're pretty close on the pressure.

4. Had my faucet and line cleaned with a professional grade line cleaning system by a friend. You should have seen the black crud burping out of the faucet. I'm sure not nearly enough people out there clean their lines as much as they should but I guarantee if anyone who doesn't clean would have seen the crud coming out of my faucet, you would surely start cleaning on a regular basis!

Hopefully this info will help the numerous amounts of people like myself that have run across the excessive head problem. I know, excessive head is an oxymoron, but in this case, it has been a problem that will hopefully no longer show up at my house!

[toneyc]

Excellent! And we *do* care about our fellow beer drinkers, man. I'm glad to hear that everything is working properly and you have no excess head.

:)
Toney.

[wayner]

Originally posted by toneyc
Yes, it does make sense, see this link:

http://www.angelfire.com/ks2/beer/homekeg.html

Nate and DrunkPenguin were having this problem earlier this month. Use a longer (10-12 feet x 3/16) beer line at 20 psi.

:)
Toney.


Sorry for sounding like a complete tool... but to check the temperature inside, do I just hang a normal indoor thermometer inside somewhere ??

[the4th]

Originally posted by toneyc
I'm glad to hear that everything is working properly and you have no excess head.


Must.... hold... back... must resist... the urge. Fight the... evil one....

[Steve16823]

If you're regulator is holding a constant pressure, the regulator is probably fine -- you just need a new pressure gage. Which should be under $10.

Regulators/Pressure gages are not 'calibrated at sea level'. Pressure gages measure the differential pressure between the keg and the local atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 14.7 psia while at 5000 ft it would be about 12.3 psia. Since the speed of the pour is proportional to differential pressure, pours should be the same speed at 10 psig at 5000 ft that they are at sea level.

The solubility of carbon dioxide however, is proportional to absolute pressure, so at 5000 ft your gauge pressure will have to be 2.4 psi higher to get the same number of volumes of CO2 in solution compared to sea level.

Hmmm... Thinking about this, I wonder if the percieved carbonation level is also related to altitude, because at a lower atmospheric pressure, CO2 will come out of solution faster and result in the impression that it is more highly carbonated.

[HiRichRules]

I am going to guess that the bulk of the problem was your dirty line and faucet. Grabage in the line will agitate the beer and cause it to foam up like mad. You should be cleaning your lines and faucets everytime you change your keg.

[Colo Keg Head]

I think your right HiRich, but I really think adding 4' to boost the restriction helped the most. Nonetheless...Much better now!

although....

I sure would like to be able to keep the beer in the tower part of the line cool so I didn't get so much foam for the first pour or two. I know I'm probably getting greedy but would love to be able to keep that stuff at the top cold...any ideas?

[toneyc]

There's a couple of things you can do....

1) Put a baffle up the middle and blow cold air up one side of the baffle with a fan.

2) Put solid metal bars or pipes filled with water up the tower to conduct the cold.

3) Water cooled. Run copper tubing up into the tower and use an aquarium pump to circulate cold water from a reservoir kept in the cooler part of the kegerator. This might actually work quite well. I imagine a miniature wort chiller, tall and slim enough to fit up into the tower, with the cold water in side going up to the top and the warm water out exiting at the bottom of the tower.

4) Peltier solid state coolers....

:)
Toney.

[Bruno_78]

This evening, I actually had to clean my faucet mid-keg because it was foaming quite a bit. If I dont' keep up on it regularly it becomes a problem.

[wayner]

How do you go about cleaning your faucet mid-keg ??


for future reference..

:D

[wayner]

How do you go about cleaning your faucet mid-keg ??


for future reference..

:D

[HiRichRules]

just shut off the C02. Use your spanner wrench to take the faucet off and soak it in some Beer Liner Cleaner. You can and should take it apart by unscrewing the metal knob on the top (just below where the tap handle would be). you can then pull the lever and the plunger out and and soak them as well. Use a brush to clean the inside of the faucet and remove any gunk.

[Steve16823]

Simply shutting off the CO2 would not stop beer from coming out due to pressure in the keg. I don't have much experience with sankey taps but wouldn't you want to remove the tap from the keg, rather than bleed the pressure from the keg?

[HiRichRules]

Yes, you are right. I was assuming he would know to disconnect the Keg Coupler. Sorry for any confusion on that, you will need to remove the keg coupler as well.