Help?!?! Kegging??

Hi,

I think I may have made a mistake.

I'm trying to keg beer for the first time. It's a lager. I did what the guy at the LHBS told me to do.

1. Sanitize, fill, and seal the keg.
2. Put the gas on the out.
3. Set psi to 50.
4. Lay on side and shake for 10-15 mins.
5. Let co2 out of headspace.
6. Set to 12psi.
7. Enjoy

I did this and the first beer shot out and filled the chases with foam. I let it sit for an hour or so and I get the same thing.

What am I doing wrong? I have company coming over in a bit and I promised homebrew! Can I rescue this in time? Did I ruin the batch? Did I over carb?

Thanks in advance!

Set your regulator to 10 PSI. Relieve the pressure off the top of your keg. Come back after a couple hours and run a test pour. If it is still frothing, repeat the bleed off proceedure, wait two hours and try again.

Next time, either set and forget for
3 weeks at serving pressure or
Cold crash a few days
24 hours @ 30 psi
Purge
Set to serving pressure
Test in a few days

Also, make sure there are no warm spots in your beer lines. When cold beer hits warm line, it gets foamy.

I think you'll be fine. If after a couple hours, lower the psi even a couple more psi.

How long are your beer lines. A quick search, you'll find a chart that will tell you how high your pressure needs to be for the length of your beer lines.

Hi

How long are your beer lines? 10 to 20 feet of 3/16 seems like a good idea.

Bob

hercher said:

Also, make sure there are no warm spots in your beer lines. When cold beer hits warm line, it gets foamy.

I think you'll be fine. If after a couple hours, lower the psi even a couple more psi.

How long are your beer lines. A quick search, you'll find a chart that will tell you how high your pressure needs to be for the length of your beer lines.

Click to expand...

It's just in a mini fridge so the lines aren't running a long distance.

When I poured the first brew it came out with a vengeance!

mdineenwob said:

It's just in a mini fridge so the lines aren't running a long distance.

When I poured the first brew it came out with a vengeance!

Click to expand...

Hi

That's a good sign that your lines are to short. It should come out a bit slowly.

Bob

mdineenwob said:

It's just in a mini fridge so the lines aren't running a long distance.

When I poured the first brew it came out with a vengeance!

Click to expand...

Yeah, sorry to say that your instructions sucked. Badly.

Not much you can do now except turn the pressure way down to like 8 psi in the fridge, and keep pulling the pressure relief valve constantly. The beer is QY overcarbed, plus shaken up besides. Think of what happens when you shake the crap out of a bottled soda and open it- explosive foam. That's what you've got now.

You could try to fix by getting 12' line serving lines right away (recommended anyway) and continuing to pull the pressure relief valve. But I wouldn't really plan on serving this until next weekend since it's such a foamy mess right now.

carlisle_bob said:

Hi

How long are your beer lines? 10 to 20 feet of 3/16 seems like a good idea.

Bob

Click to expand...

Maybe 3 or 4 feet...

mdineenwob said:

Maybe 3 or 4 feet...

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that's only going to add to your overcarbed problems. It'll come out of those short lines like a fire hose.

mdineenwob said:

Maybe 3 or 4 feet...

Click to expand...

Hi

Beer line is very cheap stuff. Get a new piece about 15 feet long.

Bob

Yooper said:

Yeah, sorry to say that your instructions sucked. Badly.

Not much you can do now except turn the pressure way down to like 8 psi in the fridge, and keep pulling the pressure relief valve constantly. The beer is QY overcarbed, plus shaken up besides. Think of what happens when you shake the crap out of a bottled soda and open it- explosive foam. That's what you've got now.

You could try to fix by getting 12' line serving lines right away (recommended anyway) and continuing to pull the pressure relief valve. But I wouldn't really plan on serving this until next weekend since it's such a foamy mess right now.

Click to expand...

So if I set it at 12 and keep drawing off the head space it'll equalize at 12 psi by next weekend. Right?

How do you quickly carb? What's the best way to carb in general?

Yooper said:

Unfortunately, that's only going to add to your overcarbed problems. It'll come out of those short lines like a fire hose.

Click to expand...

But that's what I'm a little confused about. What's the point of 15 feet of line if it's just sitting in a kegerator? It's not like it's running an appreciable distance.

mdineenwob said:

So if I set it at 12 and keep drawing off the head space it'll equalize at 12 psi by next weekend. Right?

How do you quickly carb? What's the best way to carb in general?

Click to expand...

Yes, by next weekend, at fridge temps, you should be good! You're going to want longer lines at some point. You may have to turn the gas down just to not have excessive foaming with 3' lines. Maybe, 8 or 9 psi would be better just for that reason.

I normally put my keg in the kegerator, and hook it up with the rest of the kegs and it's ready in 7-10 days.

If I'm in a huge, huge hurry, I will hook it up at 30 psi for 36 hours and then purge and set at 12 psi. It's ready then in 3-6 days.

I'm not a fan of shaking, but IF I were going to do this, I'd chill the beer and then only shake at 12 psi until no more gas went in- certainly not 50 psi! The problem with shaking (besides foamy beer) is that you resuspend sediment and stuff in the beer. If you let it sit, it clears a bit and you can pour a few ounces off and discard (it has lots of yeasty sludge) and if you don't move the keg, all the rest is nice clear beer. Shaking the keg changes all that, plus causes overcarbed foamy beer.

Set and forget, chill for a few days, set at serving pressure and forget for 3 weeks is the only sure fire way. Chilling for a few days, setting at 30 for 24 hours, purge and set to serving pressure seems to work well and is faster. There is a really good stickied thread started by Bobby_M that has a lot of great information on the subject.

mdineenwob said:

But that's what I'm a little confused about. What's the point of 15 feet of line if it's just sitting in a kegerator? It's not like it's running an appreciable distance.

Click to expand...

Hi

The beer line drops pressure *gently* when you are pouring beer. Abrupt changes in pressure create foam.

Bob

mdineenwob said:

But that's what I'm a little confused about. What's the point of 15 feet of line if it's just sitting in a kegerator? It's not like it's running an appreciable distance.

Click to expand...

You've got short lines now. In the words of Dr. Phil, "How's that working for ya?"

There is actually a reason that longer lines reduce foaming and it has to do with resistance.

In a properly carbed beer, you need some resistance as it flows to the glass. If you have short lines, the co2 is "knocked" out of solution before it gets to the glass, causing foamy beer that is seemingly flat. In a longer line, the pour is a bit slower and the co2 stays in the beer, where it belongs.

I guess a good analogy would be to picture a garden hose under the pressure of your city water. A good long hose means the pressure is great for getting to your garden. But if you make it too short, or pinch off the end (like sticking your thumb over the end), you get a firehose effect. Same amount of pressure, but the resistance is different.

I had 6' lines that I started with. Then went to 8'. Now I have 10'. I wish I just would have gone with longer lines sooner. The only "bad" effect of longer lines is a slower beer. I guess I can wait 6 extra seconds for a non-foamy beer!

Yooper said:

You've got short lines now. In the words of Dr. Phil, "How's that working for ya?"

There is actually a reason that longer lines reduce foaming and it has to do with resistance.

In a properly carbed beer, you need some resistance as it flows to the glass. If you have short lines, the co2 is "knocked" out of solution before it gets to the glass, causing foamy beer that is seemingly flat. In a longer line, the pour is a bit slower and the co2 stays in the beer, where it belongs.

I guess a good analogy would be to picture a garden hose under the pressure of your city water. A good long hose means the pressure is great for getting to your garden. But if you make it too short, or pinch off the end (like sticking your thumb over the end), you get a firehose effect. Same amount of pressure, but the resistance is different.

I had 6' lines that I started with. Then went to 8'. Now I have 10'. I wish I just would have gone with longer lines sooner. The only "bad" effect of longer lines is a slower beer. I guess I can wait 6 extra seconds for a non-foamy beer!

Click to expand...

Ahhh. Makes a lot of sense.

This is a dumb question...but I'll ask it anyway. I have the lines running up in the tower to the taps. How do I install new lines through the tower?

Also - does putting the gas line on the in or out make a difference when carbing? I thought I've heard it should go in the out so the co2 goes into the bottom and bubbles up.

mdineenwob said:

Ahhh. Makes a lot of sense.

This is a dumb question...but I'll ask it anyway. I have the lines running up in the tower to the taps. How do I install new lines through the tower?

Also - does putting the gas line on the in or out make a difference when carbing? I thought I've heard it should go in the out so the co2 goes into the bottom and bubbles up.

Click to expand...

The top of the tower should come off to give you access to the back of the shank. Most tower tops are just a tight fit, some are threaded. You may need to buy, make, or borrow a special wrench to be able to remove the tailpiece (it's often a tight fit in there).

Just put the gas on the gas post to carb. The theory that pushing gas through the beer diptube and bubbling up through the beer helps carb faster is flawed and simply not true. Any gain from the tiny extra time that you have a little extra surface area exposed to the gas is countered by the agitation from the giant bubbles. If you had an airstone or something on the end of the diptube to break the gas up into millions of super tiny bubbles then it would be a different story.