Kegging Issue

I am having an issue when done force carbonating my beer in the kegerator. I force carbonate with the proper CO2 levels given to me in a force carbonation calculator according to the beer style being kegged. I force carb for a week then turn the CO2 down to serving pressure at about 5-8 PSI. The issue is when I drop down the CO2 levels the beer comes out at a fast rate creating major head issues on the pour. This will last for about the first 15-20 beers and just all around sucks. Does anybody know of anyway to get around this?

Your "serving pressure" has to be the same as the "carbonation pressure" to avoid CO2 breaking out of solution. If you can't make that work with your existing beer lines, keep adding line until you can...

Cheers!

Hi

If you drop pressure on a keg, it doesn't just magically come down. If you have good check valves in the system, it doesn't come down much at all. You need to burp the keg a few times to get things to equalize. Depending on headspace in the keg you may need to do it for a while (like a day). I've had pretty good luck with a few hours.

The gas in the beer is trying to equalize with the pressure in the keg. It can either drive up the pressure, or burp out. Until everything gets to equilibrium your beer will have a bit more foam / carb than normal.

Bob

Yep. You need to increase your serving pressure to the same pressure you used to force carb the beer (assuming you did set & forget, i.e. carbed somewhere in the 12psi range -- if you carbonated it at, say, 30 psi and left it there a week, well then your beer is WAY overcarbed).

Say you carbonated the beer at 13 psi at 40 degrees. If your kegerator internal temp is 40 degrees, you need to keep the regulator set for that pressure. If you find your beer is pouring really quickly and full of foam with the pressure set at that level, then you need longer beer line.