Go away foam. You were not invited.

Sup ya'll. First post on the forum here. Apologies for beating a regular topic to death but the search feature seems pretty janky -- 'foam' brings up 400+ results and if I try to search with a second keyword, the second keyword seems to be ignored and I get the same 400+ results. Maybe I'm just being lazy. I've been drinking a little.

Anyway, here's the video showing the problem:

The situation is dire for a 2nd tailgate in a row. We bought the jockey box so we could have cold beer on a bus trip and it worked fine the first time we used it. In case you can't tell from the video, foam is coming straight into the line from the keg.


Vitals:

• we found best results at 12-13 psi
• teflon tape on both CO2 connections (tank-to-regulator and regulator output hose-to-tap)
• well fitting o-rings on all connections
• No leakage that we were able to see or hear
• Keg is from a well-known Texas regional brewer so its likely not the beer
• Problem did not work itself out -- we persevered until the keg was done.
• Keg traveled less than 3 miles from the brewery to the tailgate so we're certain it had minimum shaking during transportation
• Interestingly, the tap pours best when its only half-way open. When its all the way open it won't pour at all. Its quite possible that's because I'm a newb donkey and have been re-assembling tap incorrectly.

Any ideas on the cause of the foam?

Opps. I thought it was your keg.. did you purge the head pressure in the keg before hooking up the gas?

edmanster said:

Opps. I thought it was your keg.. did you purge the head pressure in the keg before hooking up the gas?

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yeah we released it several times while making pressure adjustments.

well, hard to say since I can't get yur utube to open.

From the looks of your video the CO2 is coming out of solution straight out of the keg. This tells me that you most likely do not have the gas in pressure high enough to keep it in solution, or possibly that the keg was shook the heck up. As JuanMoore said in another thread

"...12 psi you're using for the commercial kegs is likely lower than the equilibrium level. Most commercial beer is carbed to 2.7 vol, which at your serving temp would require 14-15 psi serving pressure. If you serve the beer at a lower pressure, CO2 will sometimes come out of solution in the lines forming pockets of gas as the keg sits, and the first pour of each drinking session will come out faster and full of foam."

I would suggest you start at normal pressures of 10-12 psi as it was set and slowly increasing the pressure until you hit the point where the foam in the lines goes away. the correct link to your video is for those who are interested in seeing it.

tektonjp said:

well, hard to say since I can't get yur utube to open.

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Ah crap, sorry about that. Carelessly copied the link when I was logged in to my channel.

DrunkleJon said:

the correct link to your video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok9OwjzSDn0 for those who are interested in seeing it.

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Thanks for the save!

DrunkleJon said:

From the looks of your video the CO2 is coming out of solution straight out of the keg. This tells me that you most likely do not have the gas in pressure high enough to keep it in solution, or possibly that the keg was shook the heck up. As JuanMoore said in another thread

"...12 psi you're using for the commercial kegs is likely lower than the equilibrium level. Most commercial beer is carbed to 2.7 vol, which at your serving temp would require 14-15 psi serving pressure. If you serve the beer at a lower pressure, CO2 will sometimes come out of solution in the lines forming pockets of gas as the keg sits, and the first pour of each drinking session will come out faster and full of foam."

I would suggest you start at normal pressures of 10-12 psi as it was set and slowly increasing the pressure until you hit the point where the foam in the lines goes away.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. That is quite possibly what happened. We had the pressure up pretty high when we first tapped it and there was lots of foam coming out quickly so we figured the pressure was way too high and took it all the way down to 10-13 psi. But that foam may have been from normal transport shaking and quite possibly would have gone away had we tried turning the pressure back up after getting some of that initial foam out.

Will experiment with it some more at the brewery my friend works at this weekend and post results.