Kegerator Foam

Afternoon everyone,

Have a Kegerator shooting out too much foam on usually after 1-2 first pours of the day minimum (used daily) then 1/3 foam per pint afterwards, which is still excessive.

It's a wheat beer running about a 5-7 psi as 8-10 shoots it out too fast/too much foam.

As I'm trying to isolate the problem, I noticed that when it's foaming, it's pouring in a circle rather than a stream. To explain it better, the beer is coming out around the edges of the spout with seemingly air in the middle (hence it's a circle) and as soon as it hits the chilled or unchilled glass, it starts to foam up shortly thereafter. Beer lines appear completely clean from the outside, but I was going to change them anyway in the next few weeks just to take that off the list of possible causes.

I know how to pour, I know how to open the handle all the way, etc....so it's not seemingly the pour that is the problem....I simply can't figure out why sometimes it pours in a circle and sometimes it comes out in a nice stream with minimal foam.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

How long are your beer out tubes? They need to be at least 10' long. That will solves most problems.

No clue about the circle versus stream issue. What length are your beer lines? A lot of times increasing the length of your lines can fix the foam problem. A pretty standard length to try is 10 ft.

You might also want to look into cooling your tower. This won't cure the overall foam problem but it'll help with the first couple pours. You can do several things. I built a makeshift blower out of a pc cooling, a project box, and some tubing to blow cold air from the kegerator into the tower. Used this website for reference. http://www.kegkits.com/kegerator5.htm I've seen others install a couple pieces of copper tubing extending from their tower into the kegerator. Either way works.

First, the responses are greatly appreciated, thank you.

Second, really 10 feet? I'm about to measure it right now but I'd imagine it is half that. I'll post again with measurements.

3 ft in kegerator plus 1 foot tower (not sure if it extends all the way in the tower).

That is your problem. You need to use at least 10ft of 3/16" beer line.

OR drop an epoxy mixer stick in the beer out side of the keg. This adds enough resistance to mirror longer lines. My beer lines area 17" with no issues and I serve at 9-11 psi

Good luck
Rick

Thanks everyone and thanks Rick for the stick idea. I might have to try that pending how things go.

I am getting the beer line in shortly and will give it a go in a week or so. I'll update accordingly whether it's a success or not.

Again, much appreciated.

Mike

Beer Lines now at 10 feet as of today. Early pouring seems like it remedied the problem, but it's mostly untested right now. Will test it out this weekend and give feedback, but I think good odds we found our problem.

Once again, thank you very much everyone. I would never have guessed 10 feet was the problem.

After testing out the lines for a while (10 ft at 3/16") and keeping anywhere between 5-8psi, it appears still more foam than we should be having. Less than before, but still wasting more than we should unless it's pour after pour after pour where it finally gets flowing right.

I wonder if your brew is just simply overcarbed

Is this the first time your having issues when you pour your brews?

Judging by your comment about the funky pouring (not coming out in a stream), you definitely want to have a look at your faucet. It also sounds likely that your dispensing tubing is warming up after your first few pours, thus causing breakout in your line. What's your home draft setup like? Kegerator, old fridge, tower/no tower, picnic tappers, perlick faucets? Give us the low down and maybe we can isolate your problem.

Curious if the beer is over carbonated. Over carbed beer is a total pain to deal with.

It seems it's not pouring as "funky" as before....it seems to be correctly free falling out now....but the first pint was 90% foam today. I've had it about 5/6 psi for a few days now.

It shouldn't be overcarbed beer....some times we hit a perfect streak for a while and it's just perfect for a few hours of pouring....but I can't seem to isolate as to why other than possibly frequency. The more frequent, the easier the pour, but sometimes even an hour gap is enough to foam it up again. I would blame the kegerator before I blame the beer, if I had to make an odds-based guess.

One thing we did do it put a small fan near it to prevent any chance of fruit flies. I'm now wondering if the air from the fan is finding it's way into the faucet and foaming up the beer line. I angled it today to hopefully reduce that likelihood.

Temp seems consistently 36-38 degrees depending on the day.

Mike81 said:

It seems it's not pouring as "funky" as before....it seems to be correctly free falling out now....but the first pint was 90% foam today. I've had it about 5/6 psi for a few days now.

It shouldn't be overcarbed beer....some times we hit a perfect streak for a while and it's just perfect for a few hours of pouring....but I can't seem to isolate as to why other than possibly frequency. The more frequent, the easier the pour, but sometimes even an hour gap is enough to foam it up again. I would blame the kegerator before I blame the beer, if I had to make an odds-based guess.

One thing we did do it put a small fan near it to prevent any chance of fruit flies. I'm now wondering if the air from the fan is finding it's way into the faucet and foaming up the beer line. I angled it today to hopefully reduce that likelihood.

Temp seems consistently 36-38 degrees depending on the day.

Click to expand...

The serving pressure has to match the pressure that corresponds to the carbonation level, or it will cause foaming. At 36°-38° your serving pressure of 5-6 psi will only work with beers carbed to about 2.0 vol, which is pretty low carbonation. My guess is that the beer is carbed higher than this, which means that CO2 is coming out of solution as it sits, and probably forming pockets of gas in the beer line. This would cause the exact symptoms you're describing. It also means that every time you pour a beer, you're losing a little carbonation. This will keep happening until the carbonation balances with the serving pressure at 2.0 vol.

How did you carb the beer? What carbonation level were you shooting for?