About to throw in the towel...before I even begin (balancing questions)

Reaching out to all ye beer lovers for help - I purchased a Nostalgic Electric KRS-2100 kegerator in the hopes of beginning to home-brew in the near future. From what I read the modification required to fit corny kegs is minimal and cheap. So first things first, let's try a regular keg and balance the system. Picked up a 5 gallon keg of Racer 5 IPA. I am now 1.5 weeks into this keg and have had nothing but issues. I've been scouring this (and other) websites reading up on everything required to balance a system and I'm still having issues.

1. I have a 2.5lb co2 tank, dual gauge reg, 5 feet of 3/16 beer line, and the beer temperature at 38 degrees.

2. On another forum someone contacted the brewmaster and Co2 volume is 2.25. Per the beer chart (http://www.draft-beer-made-easy.com/support-files/carbchart.pdf) I should be at 11-12 PSI.

3. Started with 12 PSI and the beer was waaay to foamy - like 90% foam. Adjusted to 8 PSI and beer flow was much better, however I noticed there was co2 in the beer line. After work i would come home and there would be a few inches of c02 in the line at the coupler.

This was not ideal, but I poured a few beers anyway and after the 3rd beer it started spurting out foam! Beer was also very cloudy. Check the line and it's about 1inch of beer for every inch of co2. Seems like I am way under pressured...WHY!? I am clearly not balanced here?

4. Figured something was off so started over. Checked for leaks everywhere and can't find one.Washers seem to be in place. Emptied Co2 from keg and regulator. PSI is back to 10 and I'm pouring cloudy beer (flow is good) and there is Co2 in the line....noooo. Note: I did wait about 30 hours before trying again.

Suggestions ? This experience is making me want to throw in the towel on home brewing before i even start! What am i missing?! Thanks in advance for any help!

pics - http://imgur.com/rU92fDm

I would think there will always be co2 in the beer line as it will come out of suspension once it's left the keg if it's staying in the line.

Honestly I think your beer line is just too short, I think the standard is 1 foot per psi.
I bet if you used 10 foot lines everything would work at your current pressures

I was also thinking of longer beer line. I started with picnic taps and they seem to do fairly well at about 5 ft. but, I had to keep the pressure fairly low and it was uneven. Now I have Perlick 525ss and 630ss taps and 10 ft. lines. It takes over a week for things to stabilize and fully carbonate.

Also, I would not put kegging and homebrewing together. Most start off bottling and then progress to kegging, myself included. Get a homebrew going while fine tuning your keg setup. If you haven't figured out the kegerator, you can always bottle the batch.

I believe you might have one more ft than required for 3\16 tubing. That diameter should give you 3psi/ft resistance. So if you have your keg at 12 psi and 5 ft that's 15psi total resistance.

I would say cut the ft and it should work fine. Calculation doesn't account for tap resistance loss also.

lousbrews said:

i believe you might have one more ft than required for 3\16 tubing. That diameter should give you 3psi/ft resistance. So if you have your keg at 12 psi and 5 ft that's 15psi total resistance.

I would say cut the ft and it should work fine. Calculation doesn't account for tap resistance loss also.

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+1

Start with at least 10ft of 3/16"ID beer line. Don't trust the calculators.

Reducing the line length is going to get you nowhere.

If 10ft doesn't help, then I'd recommend looking at the seals on the tap. It may be leaking CO2 off the headspace into the beer line. Is it a Sanke style keg? I only see one pic of the gauges. Picture of the keg and beer lines maybe.

raouliii said:

Start with at least 10ft of 3/16"ID beer line. Don't trust the calculators.

Reducing the line length is going to get you nowhere.

If 10ft doesn't help, then I'd recommend looking at the seals on the tap. It may be leaking CO2 off the headspace into the beer line. Is it a Sanke style keg? I only see one pic of the gauges. Picture of the keg and beer lines maybe.

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I would like to respectfully disagree. I have three kegs set with 3/16 at about 4 ft each to the tap. Also check this article out it should help a lot.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/07/14/keg-line-length-balancing-the-science-of-draft-beer/

Thanks for the quick reply everyone. Yeah I figured that the line length might be the culprit. It's basically the only variable I have not adjusted for yet. My ideal PSI is 9, so per the formula my length is 2.67ft.

L = (PSI -1) / 3
L = (9-1)/3 = 2.67

I think I'm inclined to start long and work my way short. I can start with 10ft and bring it back by 6in increments, but is the line length causing the few inches of co2/air in line near the coupler? No cooler on the tower but it is insulated.

Keg coupler is sanke. Picture is attached (you can see the air starting to form in the line).

Foamy_Dan said:

Thanks for the quick reply everyone. Yeah I figured that the line length might be the culprit. It's basically the only variable I have not adjusted for yet. My ideal PSI is 9, so per the formula my length is 2.67ft.

L = (PSI -1) / 3
L = (9-1)/3 = 2.67

I think I'm inclined to start long and work my way short. I can start with 10ft and bring it back by 6in increments, but is the line length causing the few inches of co2/air in line near the coupler? No cooler on the tower but it is insulated.

Keg coupler is sanke. Picture is attached (you can see he air starting to form in the line).

Click to expand...

Well you already have a 5 foot section, so cutting it down to 3 feet isnt going to waste anything at this point...if it works great if it doesnt get a 15 foot section and work back. 15 will likely be too slow, so cut it back a foot at a time until your satisfied with the speed vs foaming. I'd say just wait an hour or two between length check pours, so that your lines have a chance to reach their median temp that you will normally be serving beer at..if you just throw them on warm and pump beer through it immediately you might get "false" foaming.

Im more inclined to say you need longer rather than shorter, i cant imagine running 3 feet lines for 10PSI, sounds crazy to me regardless of what the calculators say. I run 13 feet of Accuflex bevseal 3/16 and run at like 10-12PSI, it may pour a tad on the slow side but never any foaming and if i want head on the beer just drop the glass lower at the end and a nice head forms every time.

Im not in a bar pumping out drinks at a record pace, so if my pint takes 15 seconds to fill instead of 10 its not the end of the world..i'd rather not waste the beer or my time with foam.

I wouldn't worry too much about seeing what is in the lines.

What temp is your kegorator running at? You might just need to turn down the temp a bit as well.

Also check for any kinks, or sediment build up in the taps. I doubt your line has beer stone/scale in it this quickly but it might be worth a shot at cleaning the lines.

Since you are new to kegging, make sure you are pouring the beer correctly. always use a clean glass and hold the glass at a 45 degree angle not letting it touch the faucet. When a little over 1/2 full turn the glass so its straight up and down. Make sure when you open/close the faucet you do it quickly and fully. When people come over my house the number 1 mistake I see is people opening the faucets too slowly and not opening them all the way up. A quick 20 second lesson and they are pouring perfect beers.

I'd be willing to bet that putting on a 10' beer line would solve your foamy pour problem.

Something to keep in mind. If that keg was initially carbed at 11-12psi and you are now attempting to serve at a lower pressure, the CO2 will continue to break out of solution until the beer is decarbed down to the new pressure.

My recommendation remains the same. Longer beer line to match the carb level, and set serving pressure to match.

I guess the other solution would be to decarb the keg by releasing pressure a number of times to get the carb level to match the desired serving pressure.

Ok I will adjust the beer line and get back to everyone. Since I initially carbed at 12PSI and I am now at 10PSI - is 1 week the time it takes to adjust?

Also, anyone have a link to a good "how-to" on adjusting beer length...this is new to me.

Cheers

Just for some ideas, I can give you my kegorator setup, maybe some of my ideas will help.

First, I found my normal beerline gave a plastic taste if beer sat in it for more than a day, so i upgraded to accuflex bev seal ultra line. Havent had a taste problem since. There is actually a thread that compares the taste of different beer line on the forum here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/beer-line-tests-solution-plastic-taste-60380/

The accuflex line has 1/2 of the resistance of regular line so you need 2x as much, I use 20ft 3/16 accuflex line.

To insulate the line in my tower, i installed copper tubing and insulated the tubing with old teeshirts. The copper tubing helps to transfer coldness from my fridge to the tower. It doesnt work perfectly but it definately helps. Some people install a fan to gain a similiar effect.

Imho the idea of balancing your kegerator should only be applied to bars where the time it takes to pour a glass of beer is important. At home, its not as significant if it takes you an extra 2-3 seconds to pour a beer. Therefore I recommend having extra line which offers extra resistance and will give a slower pour and retain more co2 in solution when the beer is in the glass. Also it allows you complete freedom on the temperature and psi pressure of your keg for different styles.

With my setup I can run at any temperature and any pressure and be ok.

Next, I recommend moving the co2 tank outside the keg and getting a 3 way manfold with one way valves and install on the outside of the fridge. The manifold prevents the beer from backing up to the opposite keg or regulator when your pressures arent balanced. Also you can turn off any/all of the 3 lines.

(I particularly use this feature when force carbing a pop bottle using a carb cap, i set the 3rd line to 30psi and turn off the other 2. Then after carbing i reset the regulator to 10 and reopen the other two lines.)

On your third line, I recommend using a mfl connector instead of the normal barbed one. This allows you to either pressurize using either a liquid or gas end or just remove the connector all together for purging)

Also, I recommend starting with a 20lb tank. They are only like 5$ more to fill, but you get 4x the gas. Also you dont have to keep running to the gas store to fill your bottle.

Finally, I installed a quick disconnect between the regulator and tank, It allows me to quickly swap my regulator out for a paintball fill station.

Hope some of this helps. GL!

thanks for the input - good ideas to consider as I get into brewing my own beer.

Just picked up the new beer line from the local home brew store. I spoke to the owner a bit and he suggested that before changing the line, I should remove the keg from c02, let out the co2 from the keg and start with a low PSI like 5...from there I can work my way up. He also said I may need to go as high as 30PSI to shoot out all the foam.

Do you think I should take his advise and start with a lower PSI before messing with the lines? Not sure I agree with the going as high as 30PSI part...

I'm not sure what "shoot out the foam" means unless your beer is pouring so slowly that bubbles are trapped between the low point in your line and where it attaches to the keg.

Does the foam originate at the tap or further back in the line?

barnaclebob said:

I'm not sure what "shoot out the foam" means unless your beer is pouring so slowly that bubbles are trapped between the low point in your line and where it attaches to the keg.

Does the foam originate at the tap or further back in the line?

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Yeah the pour rate seems to be OK now. It was pouring very slowly the second day I hooked it up, but there was no foam. Now it's the opposite and all foam which seems to be coming from the tap.

Still confused on why after re-pressurizing at 10PSI and bringing up the temp (it was around 34 and 12PSI when I started) I had beer spurting out of the tap, lots of air in the line...it calmed down now but still isn't pouring correctly - just not sure if longer lines will solve the problem. Keg woes.

Ignore him, set the regulator to 10PSI, purge the keg to reset it to 10PSI, install the new lines.

The difference between 10PSI and 12PSI isnt going to be enough to be blowing non stop foam out of your lines if your using 10ft+ of hose.

There is the possibility that your keg is just way overcarbed at this point, if you still see foam with 10ft lines, unhook everything and just purge the keg every 12 hours as the CO2 comes out of solution..alternatively you could probably shake it a bit to speed this process up...then hook it back up at 10PSi and let it re-carb.

FuzzeWuzze said:

Ignore him, set the regulator to 10PSI, purge the keg to reset it to 10PSI, install the new lines.

The difference between 10PSI and 12PSI isnt going to be enough to be blowing non stop foam out of your lines if your using 10ft+ of hose.

There is the possibility that your keg is just way overcarbed at this point, if you still see foam with 10ft lines, unhook everything and just purge the keg every 12 hours as the CO2 comes out of solution..alternatively you could probably shake it a bit to speed this process up...then hook it back up at 10PSi and let it re-carb.

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I wish I had ignored his advice, but unfortunately I did not. I unhooked the co2, purged the co2 from the keg, and hooked back up at 5PSI. Waited about 45 mins between each attempt at pouring and subsequent adjustment (of 1PSI) to get back to 10ish, but I'm pretty sure this just made it worse. Each time I tried to pour I got only co2 out of the faucet. It's like the keg is empty (but it should have a couple gallons left based on my weight calcs). Do you suggest the remedy for overcarbed (i.e., unhook everything...purge the keg every 12 hours to remove co2 from solution)?

Yes, unless your literally just dumping CO2 and no liquid then your probably empty...if your just pouring a ton of foam that eventually settles into beer purge it for a few days and try again.

Also hook up your new lines if you havent yet.