Over carbonation

I have a draft beer setup and only run my psi at 9 and I have a huge problem with over carbing. Doesn't matter how big the beer is the first few are always alot of head. Any ideas?

when you say "first few"... do you mean the first few of the keg or the first few every day?

First few everyday.....

Are you using a tap tower?

Sounds like your problem isn't over carbing. that would affect every pint, every day. My guess is that your lines are a little warm, so you get an outrush of gas on the first (warmer ones) and then once the lines are cold you get good pours.

I have this issue on the first pour of the day on my system, too. That first pint from the tap gets about 2" of head on it. Subsequent pours have much less.

As a matter of fact I am using a tower. I never thought of that. So I need to figure out how to get the lines colder.

busta98 said:

As a matter of fact I am using a tower. I never thought of that. So I need to figure out how to get the lines colder.

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Lots of people take a cooling fan from a PC, wired up to a DC power source, and use that to blow the cold air up and into the tower to keep the lines cold.

I tried the trick of using copper pipes as jackets for the lines... the idea being that the copper would act as a heat sink and stay cold up through the tower if you extended them down into the fridge cabinet.

I don't think that works very well having done it myself, but perhaps it does help a little? No idea... I never tried the kegerator without the copper pipes.

I fixed the tower issue but it didn't seem to do anything. The beer just come firing out of there and the my PSI is 9. Thoughts?

Is it still just a problem with the first couple pints you pull or is it worse now??

What size lines are you using and how long are they?

JuanMoore said:

What size lines are you using and how long are they?

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I was going to ask that at first, but if it was a line balancing issue, he would get the foam all the time and not just on the first couple of pints of the day.

strange....

I wonder what would happen if he bleed his keg before the first few pints?

On the tower, in Brazil (big draft beer country) they pack the tap towers with ice. They are designed to hold a lot of ice and look real cool covered in slowly melting ice.

m.

It definately could be the temp of the tower. I run my commercial keg beer through the tower, and kegged my home brew into a corny, running it out of about 5 feet of tubing to a cobra tap. My tower always foams on the first glass after sitting a (short) while. My home brew, even thought I was worried after reading of foaming problems here, flowed out beautifully. The line and cobra tap sits inside the kegerator and stays cold. As much as I like the easier use and look of the tower, I'm tempted to put a cobra tap on my commercial keg and just open the door when I want beer.

Walker said:

Lots of people take a cooling fan from a PC, wired up to a DC power source, and use that to blow the cold air up and into the tower to keep the lines cold.

I tried the trick of using copper pipes as jackets for the lines... the idea being that the copper would act as a heat sink and stay cold up through the tower if you extended them down into the fridge cabinet.

I don't think that works very well having done it myself, but perhaps it does help a little? No idea... I never tried the kegerator without the copper pipes.

Click to expand...

I had to increase the mass of the copper inside the kegerator to make it work, but now it works pretty well. The first pour has a "big head," but not crazy big. Subsequent pours are perfect.

Actually, I ran each beer line straight through a T, put copper pipe extending horizontally on the middle branch of the T, and inserted solid brass rod into the horizontal pipe. In retrospect, had I bought 5/8" brass rod, it may have fit directly into the copper T. 1/2" would not fit snugly, so I needed the horizontal copper pipe to support it.