Excessive foaming from commercial keg - hunh???

SWMBO and I just hosted Christmas at our place, and picked up a sanke log of Sam Adam's Winter for any guests who were less inclined to have the bigger homebrews I have on tap right now. (Side note: after sampling this, I can't believe this used to be one of my favorite beers!)

I have a 4 tap kegerator that is typically serving up homebrew, and everything's pretty well balanced - I get nice pours off my cornies, with just the right amount of head. I keep the temps in the upper 30's, 10 psi, 8' lines, and everything's been peachy.

But so far, every time I pour off the log, I fill 1 pint glass halfway with foam, dump it, and then get decent pours. But if I come back an hour or two later to it, I have to repeat the process.

What gives? Do you balance sanke's differently than cornies? Am I possibly applying too much pressure (in which case, I'd expect the pours to get better in another week or so)? Is there some common "thing" that needs to be done to a sanke coupler to avoid this problem that I just don't know about?

I've asked the same question in the past. What I was told was commercial kegs are filled at a much higher pressure than our homebrew kegs. I was told you had to balance the pressure by raising my regulater to 30-35psi (which didn't work for me) or bring it down to a trickle (5psi ish). That worked for the commercial keg but if you have a homebrew on the same regulator, it will be a trickle. Hopefully others have better ideas.

Did you vent the sanke at the coupler to be sure you had the actual line pressure from the regulator.

I've had similar issues, and talked to the guys at the LHBS about this, and they seem to think it's due to the diameter of the dip tube. In a corny keg, the dip tube is about half the diameter as that in a commercial keg. On my setup, my beer line on my corny kegs and commercial keg is 3/16" ID, but I had to increase the length of my commercial line to about twice as long as on my corny lines to get a nice commercial pour. I don't have the measurements, temps, etc right now, but I could get them for you if you need it. Also, you may try a larger diameter line on the commercial keg to see if that helps.

Clark

I fill 1 pint glass halfway with foam, dump it, and then get decent pours. But if I come back an hour or two later to it, I have to repeat the process.

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this leads me to think that the beer is getting warm in the lines, or maybe CO2 is collecting in the sankey spear. if it were line legnth issues, it would come out constantly foamy. the fact that it only happens after the beer has been sitting untouched for a few hours means something is happening over that time period, but not quickly enough to be apparent after only a few minutes.

commercial beer kegs are no different in terms of pressure. the shape or size of the container doesnt matter to a gas. its all the same. line legnth or diameter should be identical.