new onset foamy beer...

[nola mike]

have had my home made tower kegerator for almost 2 months, and am 2-3 weeks into my 2nd keg. after daily use previously, it went unused for 10 days while i was on vacation. came back, and am now getting nothing but foam. the beer is 38', using 5' of 3/16" line. pressure was at 10 psi. thought that the problem might be dirtiness, worse since it hadn't been flushed in so long. cleaned lines, took apart tap, cleaned/disinfected. no change. have played with carbonation, but no change. prior to this, everything worked perfectly, so i don't know what changed. any thoughts? thanks!

[corkybstewart]

The whole time you've been away your beer has been absorbing CO2. Depending on what type keg iit is you may be able to release the pressure or just turn off the CO2 for a few pitchers and you should be alright. When I go on vacation I always turn my CO2 off so I don't have this problem.

[brian92]

How many beers have you tried to poor since you got back? I wouldn't be surprise to see the first beer to be foamy, but not the rest of the keg.

What kind of beer? At 10psi and 38 degrees, a typical beer should not get overcarbonated no matter how long you let it sit connected to the tank, so I doubt that's the issue. The only thing I can think of is something in the lines, coupler, or faucet that is agitating the beer, but it sounds like you cleaned everything.

[stronk]

^ couldn't it be a problem with the regulator leaking slightly into the keg over a long period? You wouldn't then notice it with normal use, as the pressure would be relieved at every pour.

[nola mike]

no, i poured *plenty* of beer, and it remained foamy. i believe the problem was overcarbonation, though i had read that that would be unlikely in a nearly full keg. after relieving the pressure without much success, i tried doing it multiple times; relieved pressure, came back in an hour and repeat, maybe 3 times until nothing came out with tap open. then i *slowly* upped pressure, to like 1 or 2 psi. now it's coming out much better, with maybe 1/4 of glass=head. strangely, it has an initial spurt of nearly air when i first pull the tap; wondering if this is now a symptom of undercarbonation. weird though that it would absorb co2; i would think that at 10 psi, you're at a steady state. unless 10 psi is too high, but never made it to equilibrium being used every day.
stronk, if there was a reg leak into tank, i'd think the gauge would creep up and read >10psi, wouldn't it?

[toneyc]

Unless your regulator or gauge is faulty and the pressure is actually higher than 10psi.

:)
Toney.

[nola mike]

well, to have a leak and not register on the gauge, the regulator AND gauge would have to be faulty...

[brian92]

The spirt of air you are getting is from the PSI being too low. It's a pocket of gas that escaped the beer in the line. You typically get a pocket at the faucet and the coupler. So, you'll typically get a spirt of air, then some beer, then another spirt of gas.

Toneyc is right about a faulty gauge being the only possibility to overcarbonate your beer (provided your temperature is steady and accurate). If your pressure is too high, you'll overcarbonate the beer over time, no matter how full the keg is. When you set your pressure to 1-2PSI, what was the pour rate like? I would expect it to be very very slow.

In the end, if your system was working fine before, you may just want to untap the keg when you leave for long trips in the future. That way the same amount of co2 stays in the keg during your absence.

[Beermaker]

38 degrees, at 10 psi is only 2.38 volumes of CO2. This is ok, unless it is some kind of wild belgian or berliner, then you would need more pressure. Did you using priming sugar? Or did you just keg straight out of secondary? What kind of beer is it?

http://www.indata.com/collectionsoft/mybrewcollection/fc0.html

or this http://www.angelfire.com/ks2/beer/homekeg.html scroll down to low pressure.

[nola mike]

heh heh, i'm using the champagne of beers...store hasn't opened from katrina still. well, maybe a (newly?) faulty gauge. i've now had it at 2-3 psi for a couple of days, good flow rate (maybe a little slower than usual?), and it's worked well, though not much head at all. upped it to 6 psi, with result=1/4 - 1/3 glass head. i'll back it down to 4-5 and see if that's right. thanks for the advice.