Abita 1/4 misbehaving

I bought a 1/4 keg of Abita Amber and threw it on my 12 psi 3 tap keezer w/ 10 ft lines and Perliks. I keep the keezer set on 4-5 C and the previous 4 sixtel kegs placed on the same sankey tap in it have behaved and poured spectacularly, as do and have all of the corny's of homebrew. As soon as I placed this keg on the tap i started getting foaming issues with just that tap.

I assumed that Abita must have a higher serving pressure than the 12psi/4-5C that I have been serving everything else on fine, so I turned the gas off the keg and kept pouring, then once the beer started dribbling out after a week and a half put it back on 12psi to re-carb.

I initially got 5/6 pint of foam that settled to ~1/3 of beer when the head died down. Frustrating. After this treatment, and a second repeat where I bled all the pressure out of the keg and left it off for days before re-pressurizing, I am still getting spitting for the first draw, as well as gas coming out of suspension in the lines although I am now down to 1/2, 1/2 on pours. There is no beer/gas leaks that I can see and this keg has not yet drained my CO2 tank over the month+ I have had it tapped.

So, my question is what do you think is the issue? temp stratification (I do not yet have a fan in my keezer, but my cornys/sistels seem to behave), still overpressurized?

What should I do? Keep messing with it, or suffer through half foam pours and just kill off this damn keg? Opinions please.

Couple of thoughts: First, are both the line and faucet clean? Take the faucet off the shank and see if this is residue at either the faucet or shank end. Assuming that your lines are transparent, look for crud. Watch the line while pouring to see when/ where the foaming starts. You might need to really clean all this.

Second, when the faucet is off do you see a pocket of gas forming where the tubing turns down from the coupler? Do you see any bubbles, however tiny, rising up from the coupler? This usually means that the head pressure from the regulator is less that the beer pressure. Turn up the regulator pressure to keep the gas in solution.

Cheers

All is clean, I flush with Oxy then rinse well then starsan when hooking up my next keg.

Yeah this past time when I repressureized i was noticing bubbles steadily coming out of the liquid out end of the keg coupler. Would have thought after depressurizing as much as I have that it would not be over carbed anymore.

DrunkleJon said:

All is clean, I flush with Oxy then rinse well then starsan when hooking up my next keg.

Yeah this past time when I repressureized i was noticing bubbles steadily coming out of the liquid out end of the keg coupler. Would have thought after depressurizing as much as I have that it would not be over carbed anymore.

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The bubbles forming indicate that the serving pressure is lower than the pressure that corresponds to the carb level.

From what you've described you haven't really reduced the carb level much at all. You can't just vent the keg once and then let it sit and expect the carb level to decrease significantly. The headspace will quickly fill up with gas to replace the pressure that was vented (reducing the carbonation a tiny amount), and then nothing will change. You need to periodically vent the pressure many many times over the course of a few days to have any significant impact. That is unless I'm reading it wrong, and you left the keg unsealed for several days after venting the pressure.

I agree. It's physics - the gas will migrate to the lower pressure so if you think the beer is over carbonated (not likely with commercial kegs) you need to vent and allow the gas some time to get out of the beer. But it may just be that a higher regulator pressure will suppress the foam by keeping the gas in solution.

Couple other things: Star-San is an outstanding sanitizer but it is not a cleaner. And bear in mind that your regulator gauge may not be accurate. Don't be a slave to the numbers, let the beer tell you when the carbonation is right.

Cheers!