Too much foam

Hello,
I am just getting into the kegerator game and I have a question.

My beer is pouring with too much foam. After the first pour, it is about 80% foam. After a minute, it settles to about half foam, half beer. I can pour again and get it to 75% beer, but that is the best I can do.

I love the kegerator and having draft beer at home, but I would like to be able to get it right on the first pour. It is not too much trouble for myself, but if I entertain, it would be nice to have it pour right the first time.

Here's a little background:

Fridge is 36-38 degrees.
Kegerator is a two-product tower mini-fridge with a perlick faucet.
Beer is NBB Skinny Dip Sixtel (the keg was ready before I have any homebrew ready...I am putting homebrew in it soon)
CO2 is set at 12 psi.

When I pour, I am holding the glass at 45 degrees and open the faucet all the way. At about 3/4 full, I put the glass upright and close the faucet quickly.

Any tips?

Thanks.

Eric

What size and how long are your beer lines? Lines that are too short or to big will cause it to foam.

approx 5' of 3/16" ID line. I could probably take off 2.5'. The line does dip below the tap about 1 foot before coiling back up toward the tower.

Eric

NO!!! Dont do that!!! The longer the line the better. Helps equalize the pressure so you dont get as much foam. If anything I would use 10ft of line.

I'm using 6' of 3/16" line in my kegerator, so we should be pretty close. I also generally run 10-12psi but up to 14 on some beers.

When you're tilting the glass at 45 degrees, do you have the spout of the tap right against the side of the glass so the beer almost slides into the glass?

-Joe

nostalgia said:

I'm using 6' of 3/16" line in my kegerator, so we should be pretty close. I also generally run 10-12psi but up to 14 on some beers.

When you're tilting the glass at 45 degrees, do you have the spout of the tap right against the side of the glass so the beer almost slides into the glass?

-Joe

Click to expand...

It is not far from the glass, but I didn't give it much thought. Should I keep it close to the glass?

EricCSU said:

It is not far from the glass, but I didn't give it much thought. Should I keep it close to the glass?

Click to expand...

it should be touching the glass.

So, I poured again tonight. I underestimated how much foam it was...it is more like 90% foam and 10% beer that becomes 50/50 after about a minute. I poured with the faucet touching the glass as well. I will post a picture a little later.

Eric

Immediately after the pour:


After 60 seconds:


After 3 minutes:

I can definitely try 10 feet of beer line to see if this helps.

Does anyone else have tips or tricks to try.

This is kind of a PITA.

Eric

It sounds like your line is indeed too short.

When I started dispensing from kegs a while back, I was using cobra taps on a 4' 3/16 beer line. The only way I could get a proper pour was to reduce the pressure drastically and blow down the keg, which wasted lots of CO2.

I've since switched to 10' of 3/16 beer line on a cobra tap, at 12-15 PSI, and I get much better pours.

Next stop, repainting the keg fridge and adding a pair of perlick faucets.

EricCSU said:

I can definitely try 10 feet of beer line to see if this helps.

Does anyone else have tips or tricks to try.

This is kind of a PITA.

Eric

Click to expand...

Even if you replace your lines, you have to accept the fact that between sessions, CO2 will settle in the high spots of your hose and those bubble pockets will churn your pour and cause a lot of foaming.

I've resolved myself to the fact that the first pour of the evening needs to be preceded by pouring off 3-5 ounces to purge the line of CO2 bubbles.

If you are having a lot of CO2 accumulating between each subsequent pour, your beer may be over carbonated.

Try killing the gas and let the residual pressure push your pours until the gas runs out (of the keg). Then...just give the keg a quick blast to put enough pressure to push some more.

In the process, you should get clearer pours, and you will be degassing the beer slightly since you don't have constant gas pressure.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys.

I think I may have screwed this up. I called the guy from beveragefactory.com and he gave me a few tips.

I will report back tomorrow and post the results of the troubleshooting.

Eric

EricCSU said:

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys.

I think I may have screwed this up. I called the guy from beveragefactory.com and he gave me a few tips.

I will report back tomorrow and post the results of the troubleshooting.

Eric

Click to expand...

Care to share what you think you did wrong?

I think that the beer is too warm. I have a fridge thermometer in there, but it is in the back right next to the CO2 bottle and back of the fridge, which I think is giving me a false reading. It has been reading at about 30-32 degrees, but never felt that cold. So, I moved the thermometer near the front of the fridge, waited a minute, and it reads 46 degrees.

I measured the beer and my instant read thermometer reads 54 degrees. There is no way it is that warm, so I tested some ice water. 54 degrees again. The thermometer is obviously not working.

But, the beer does feel warm. Generally speaking, the most obvious solution is usually the correct one, so I am going to try to correct the temperature issue (or at least properly analyze it) first.

I turned the thermostat down and I am on my way to Target to get a new instant read probe thermometer.

Eric

P.S. Guy at beveragefactory.com says that it is probably not the lines and that my case really sounds like a temperature issue.

I went through the same issue with having 80% foam. My setup is a little different in that I have a fridge with faucet coming out the side so there is only about 1.5 ft between the keg out to the back of the shank. I did two things that solved my problem.

1. got rid of home depot "thin wall" beer line
2. got "thick" wall tubing from LHBS. LHBS guy also advised on line length since he had similar setup to mine.

Replacing with thickwall line did the trick for me. I get the perfect pour now. If beer lines are old you might want to clean them.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/foamy-beer-beer-line-124174/

Yep, it was definitely the temperature. I moved the thermometer and have kept a bottle of water in there to get the liquid temp just to verify the reading. I think it was originally 45 degrees. It is now 36 degrees and much, much better. I feel pretty stupid about this whole thing now. I just drank this pint and thought, damn, this is a lot more cold! Yeah stupid, it is a cold beer and before you were drinking warm beer!

This is about 15 seconds after the pour:

Now you're talking. :rockin:

Warmer beer allows more CO2 out of solution at the faucet compared to colder beer assuming that all other variables are the same. I ran your setup through the beer line balancing formula to get the length of 3/16" line you should need to serve with keg pressure at 12psi. It shows that you should optimally have a 4.25' run of line to your tap, which you said you were using 5'. Glad all is working for you now!