Beer Too Warm?

Hi everyone, thanks for reading my thread.
I bought a kegerator a few months ago, it is the Edgestar kc2000, I payed about $400 for it.
My first keg I got was a 15.5 gallon keg of Peroni. Whenever I poured beer out of the tap the first glass would usually be kind of foamy, nothing too bad, but I would have to wait a minute or two for the foam to settle. If I were to get another beer from the tap that night, the rest of the beers would pour perfectly, however the beer was a little on warmer then what you would get if you would get a draft beer from a bar. I have a thermometer in the kegerator and the average temperature was about 45 degrees. So, I figured that was why the first beer of the night would be a little foamy.

I just recently got a new keg about a week ago. It is a 15.5 gallon keg of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. A nice flaorful richer beer. However, when I pour a glass from the tap about 90% of it is just completely foam. The average temperature in the keg is about the same as it was for the Peroni. This keg runs a touch higher, at about 46.5 degrees. Do any of you think that this beer is all foam because of the warmer temperature with along with the richer body of the beer? I'm pretty sure that on average your kegerator should be running about 40 degrees, yes?

I have done some everything I can to figure out why it is coming out all foam. I relocked the coupler to make sure it is on correctly (unless I have the wrong coupler? It is the same one that I used for the Peroni keg, I forget which grade it is the most common coupler for any American style keg, it just so happened the the Peroni keg fitted with that). I let out all the pressure from me CO2 tank and let it fill back up, it is att 11 psi right now and has been. And I even cleaned out all of the tubing and dispensing tower.

Any ideas on why it is all foam?

P.S. the kegerator setting is at it's lowest temperature and it is still at 46.5 on avergage.

Thankyou,
Nick

I actually just poured a glass right now and it poured about 50% foam, but what was interesting is that there is quite a bit of foam extracting from where the coupler is inserted into the keg? Could all of this mean that I just have the wrong coupler? Because I also noticed that my psi dropped down to about 8-9.

Thankyou,
Nick

How long do you let the keg settle after moving it and hooking it up?

It's been settled for about a week now.
I just checked it again and I noticed that some beer is slowly oozing out from where the tubing connects to the coupler, I guess maybe that could foul up the whole process?

2 things stick out to me - how long are the beer lines coming from the keg to the tap? Depending on thickness, they should be at least 4' in length to keep foaming down. Secondly, what'st he temperature of the *beer* as soon as it comes out of the tap? The temp in the kegerator may not be the same as the temp of the beer itself. But you're going to have to figure out a way to get it lower than 45 degrees if foaming is an issue...an external temperature controller may be your solution.

Also - if the lines themselves are fairly long and aren't cooled, then you'll have foaming issues. If this is the case, you'll need to concoct a way to keep them cooled.

As others have pointed out, it could be a lot of things. Line diameter, line length, temperature, or pressure.

You definitely need to eliminate leaks as you described. Most kegerators are balanced (line length/diameter vs temperature/pressure) to be served under 40 degrees, so you might want to try a lower temperature setting just to confirm this is a balance issue.