Foamy Soda...

I posted this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/kegged-soda-foams-331569/

In the kegging section. Maybe I needed to post it here in the soda section, so you soda folks would know about it! Anyway, posting it here in the hopes that someone can help me. I'm tired of foamy, flat soda...

soda needs like 3X the psi to carbonate......foamy[question mark]

lol. wii browser has no q mark... or excl point.

My soda is at 35 PSI with 30 feet of 3/16" ID vinyl tubing. From everything I've read that should keep it carbonated, but reduce the flow enough to serve it.

The problem I described in the other thread is that it starts foaming up in the line, so by the time it gets out of the faucet it is all foam and has lost of of its carbonation...

Damn. Sorry. 30 ft sounds long, but not my area of expertise.

Is the hose stored cold?

I assume it's at 35 psi at 40 degrees or so? If so, 30' should be enough.

I'm trying to picture what's going on. For some reason, the soda seems to be overcarbed or something. Did it always stay at 35 psi?

cheezydemon3 said:

Damn. Sorry. 30 ft sounds long, but not my area of expertise.

Is the hose stored cold?

Click to expand...

The hose is stored cold. So the entire thing is at the same temperature until it leaves the faucet.

Yooper said:

I assume it's at 35 psi at 40 degrees or so? If so, 30' should be enough.

I'm trying to picture what's going on. For some reason, the soda seems to be overcarbed or something. Did it always stay at 35 psi?

Click to expand...

Yes to all that set up. I have a bit to say, so I bolded all my questions.

I did notice with this root beer that it was around 38 PSI. Could that 3 PSI have over carbonated it? Even if it did, I have had other sodas do the same thing between 30-35PSI.

One thing that I don't understand is that it seems like the flow rate is just way too high. That is why I added the epoxy mixers mentioned in the thread I linked to above. I got tricked, however, because after I had the mixers it started sputtering. I figured it was because now it had too much flow resistance. So I cut the line down to about 20 feet with the epoxy mixers. Hopefully that doesn't screw it up when I do my next batch.

As I was typing this out, I realized that maybe my temperature in the fridge is lower than I think it is. That sure would result in over carbonation. I will check that out. Would it be worthwhile on my next root beer to start carbonating it at 20 PSI and raise it a few PSI every couple of days until I get a decent balance of carbonation and flow rate?

First, thanks for the support! Especially what you said Yooper.

I believe I am well on the road to solving this problem, so hopefully other people who Google "foamy soda" and just get more confused like I did will benefit from this post.

Yooper said:

For some reason, the soda seems to be overcarbed or something.

Click to expand...

That made me realize that my soda is over carbonated. That certainly explains the high flow rates. But my pressure was at 38 PSI, could 3 PSI really make a difference?

Well, it turns out that my kegerator was running colder on average than I thought. So with the soda at 38PSI and 36.5F, it was getting way too carbonated.

I turned the pressure down to 25PSI and things seem to be much better. It still needs a little more carbonation in the soda, but I'll let it sit a few days to see if it gets it.

So when you're thinking about over carbonation remember that the temperature of your brew matters too!

I had a similar problem with a keg of root beer that was placed in service in my kegerator. I had previously served many, many kegs of root beer out of this same tap without any foaming. (38˚F temp at 35 psi through 35' of 3/16" thick walled beverage tubing).

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I discovered that my problem was an ever so slight crack at the very top of my liquid out dip tube! This little crack was allowing the 35 psi of CO2 sitting at the top of the empty head space to escape directly into my beverage line, which caused the root beer to foam up in the line and come out of the tap as all foam! Replaced the cracked dip tube and all was right again.

Wow John! Do you think that could happen to beer at a lower PSI too? Or perhaps a crack will just do that every time...

Absolutely. Any leak of co2 from the head space into the liquid out line will create foaming. The leak can come from a bad liquid out diptube o-ring or a crack in the diptube itself.