anyone have air in their lines?

Have you ever experienced co2 pockets in your keg lines? I keep my lines coiled and hanging, so co2 bubbles up and creates pockets in the line and the next pour ends up foamy. Solutions??? I wonder what bigger breweries do...

I have worked in a "bigger brewery" and you shouldn't have air in your lines. When co2 puts head pressure on your keg beer comes out the dip tube. co2 doesn't push through the beer into the line. Check your tubing connections and make sure you have tightened hose clamps on all of em. To me it sounds like you have an air leak.

I have two kegs that do this exact thing, rest of my kegs pour fine; I've tried new gaskets, switching dip tubes/lids, longer beer lines; sprayed star san all over the lid looking for bubbles from leaks and can't find anything. Hopefully someone on here can help.

rausched said:

I have two kegs that do this exact thing, rest of my kegs pour fine; I've tried new gaskets, switching dip tubes/lids, longer beer lines; sprayed star san all over the lid looking for bubbles from leaks and can't find anything. Hopefully someone on here can help.

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I would focus on the Out dip tube and its o-ring, because gas getting into the beer line would have to either be sneaking around the o-ring at the dip tube flange, or entering through a pin hole or crack in the tube above the beer line...

Cheers!

Air isn't getting in, CO2 is coming out of suspension. And this almost always means that your beer is over carbonated or your serving pressure is too low.

thargrav said:

Air isn't getting in, CO2 is coming out of suspension. And this almost always means that your beer is over carbonated or your serving pressure is too low.

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LOL this^^^I have one keg that does that. I force carbed it at 30 psi before connecting to the manifold. No big deal. Just unplug the gas and leave the relief valve open for a few minutes and gas back up. There is too much co2 in the beer compared to the regulator pressure.

this also happens when you have temperature stratification. If air is moving in whatever you are using as a fridge the lower in the box the colder it is. Cold Beer comes from the bottom of the keg and as it sits in the warmer hose the co2 can break out of solution. Mine used to do this until i built a small fan to move cold air around.

If you overcarbed your keg, then lowered the psi to pour better, the co2 will come out of suspension in your line. To test if this is the problem, Jack your pressure up 10 extra psi, pour 6 or so ounces then watch the lines. If in a few minutes no bubbles form, the keg was overcarbed. To fix just unhook the keg and burp the pressure over a couple days.
The other possibility is there is crap builtup in the line and giving the co2 nucleation sites to come out of suspension.

Every kegerator with a beer tower has this problem until you install some sort of beer tower cooler in the tower.

thargrav said:

Air isn't getting in, CO2 is coming out of suspension. And this almost always means that your beer is over carbonated or your serving pressure is too low.

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Ok! Sounds like this could be my problem... I have a couple brews now that I serve around 3.1 volumes. I have to lower my pressure to serve because I have been experiencing excessive foam when I try to balance the system properly. I used 25' of line once and the flow rate was OK, but it still came out foamy.
Thanks for the advice!

thargrav said:

Every kegerator with a beer tower has this problem until you install some sort of beer tower cooler in the tower.

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I have two towers and while I get small pockets of CO2 the beer pours fine. No cooling necessary.

thargrav said:

Every kegerator with a beer tower has this problem until you install some sort of beer tower cooler in the tower.

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Doesn't seem to happen to me. I have a tower and my lines stay full of beer, no air/co2 pockets.