Foam. Foam. Foam.

I've just kegged my first double IPA. My kegerator temp is 42 degrees and my tap line is 3 feet. My psi is set at 10 but I am getting nothing but foam! It will eventually settle to a half glass of good beer put pouring is a nightmare. Is it too warm? Too high pressure? I have tried adjusting with no result. PLEASE HELP

Take the three feet of "tap line" and throw it in the trash.
Then go buy 10 feet of 3/16" ID beer line and install it...

Cheers!

My guess is too small and too short beer tubing. Also, you don't mention how you carbonated. Did you set at 10psi and leave for a few days, carb at 30psi and roll the keg, ...? Your pressure seems a little low at that temp to be causing teh problem, my guess is your carbonation process, or your set up. I would change to 10' of 1/4" tubing, vent the keg a couple of times, drop the temp to 36, and increase pressure to 12psi. Test after two days (maybe vent to keg two or three times over those two days).

prandlesc said:

My guess is too small and too short beer tubing. Also, you don't mention how you carbonated. Did you set at 10psi and leave for a few days, carb at 30psi and roll the keg, ...? Your pressure seems a little low at that temp to be causing teh problem, my guess is your carbonation process, or your set up. I would change to 10' of 3/16" tubing, vent the keg a couple of times, drop the temp to 36, and increase pressure to 12psi. Test after two days (maybe vent to keg two or three times over those two days).

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Fixed.

Thanks! I will take care of the 10' line tonight. I carbonated at 30 psi for 2 days.

Here's hoping all is fixed.

Just make sure you don't get 1/4"!

pgerickson said:

Thanks! I will take care of the 10' line tonight. I carbonated at 30 psi for 2 days.

Here's hoping all is fixed.

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Two days of 30psi @ 42°F likely overcarbed your beer, which on top of a way-too-short (and apparently too large diameter) beer line results in what you're seeing. After you install an appropriate beer line you'll probably have to shut the gas off and "burp" CO2 out of the keg head space until it calms down...

Cheers!

JuanMoore said:

Fixed.

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I use 1/4" line and it solved my pour problems. 3/16" caused too much pressure drop. Your individual set up may be different than mine, but I read a few articles and did the calculations and found that 1/4" was the solution for my set up - and it's worked great ever since.

Here are a couple of links to articles helping determine the right size for your beer lines -
http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/07/14/keg-line-length-balancing-the-science-of-draft-beer/

http://www.franklinbrew.org/wp/?page_id=98

And Juan, I appreciate your comments and respect that you have a different opinion, but please don't mis-quote me and then call it "fixed".

Spend a couple of years here and you will find that extremely few folks get a good pour using 1/4" ID beer lines. Like, apparently only one.

And l would not recommend following the guidance provided by Beersmith et al as they are fundamentally flawed...

Cheers!

I do think it's important to understand the fundamentals of line balancing, so the Beersmith article can be very helpful on some level. But of course one just has to remember that the magic "XX psi per foot" number is never to be trusted.

prandlesc said:

I use 1/4" line and it solved my pour problems. 3/16" caused too much pressure drop. Your individual set up may be different than mine, but I read a few articles and did the calculations and found that 1/4" was the solution for my set up - and it's worked great ever since.

Here are a couple of links to articles helping determine the right size for your beer lines -
http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/07/14/keg-line-length-balancing-the-science-of-draft-beer/

http://www.franklinbrew.org/wp/?page_id=98

And Juan, I appreciate your comments and respect that you have a different opinion, but please don't mis-quote me and then call it "fixed".

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I sincerely apologize for "fixing" your post. No disrespect was intended, and I honestly thought that you'd made a typo since nearly everyone suggests 10' of 3/16" line, and because suggesting 10' of 1/4" line is bad advice for most situations.

And FWIW the equations and calculators in the articles you linked are severely flawed in several ways. They usually work ok for commercial serving situations, but they make several assumptions that cause issues for the vast majority of homebrewers who try to utilize them. The first assumption is that the primary objective is to be able to pour as fast as possible without losing too much product to excessive foaming. This is absolutely true for a bar, but for most homebrewers a system flexible enough to result in a good pour at a wide range of serving temperatures and carbonation levels is much more important. The only side effect of longer or smaller diameter lines is a slightly slower pour, and if I have time to drink a beer, I have an extra second or two to wait for it to pour. IMHO it's a small price to pay for great system flexibility.

The second assumption is that we'll be storing all of our beer below 38°F, and it will all be carbonated below 2.8 vol. The vast majority of commercial beer is stored at 36°F and carbed to 2.7 vol, and the fastest pour that doesn't cause foaming under these conditions is ~1gal/min. All of those equations and calculators in those articles will result in a line length that gives this flow rate, or something very close to it. The problem is that the warmer the serving temperature or the more highly carbed the beer, the slower and gentler the pour needs to be to prevent excessive foaming. Those equations all use constants for the line resistance for a specific type of beer line (usually found in a separate table), but that value is only valid at a flow rate of 1 gal/min. Anyone with a basic understanding of fluid mechanics knows that line resistance is a function of flow rate, so those numbers and equations become useless for any flow rate other than 1 gal/min.

If you plan on storing your beer very cold, and keeping all of your beers carbed under 2.8 vol, then by all means use those equations. Since most homebrewers I've met prefer their beers served slightly warmer than 38°, and might someday want to try carbing a Belgian or Hefe to 3+ vol, following the advice of articles like the ones you linked is generally a bad idea that will result in lots of foam and frustration.

Here is a trick that really works

10 feet of beer line, how do you deal with it in the kegerator, zip ties, Velcro or duct tape

I roll with 17" (inch) beer lines and add an epoxy mixer stick to the keg beer line. 10-13 psi and every keg, every glass is perfect, carb is spot on


Enjoy
Rick

10 feet of beer line, how do you deal with it in the kegerator

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Easily. I just coil the slack beer line on top of its keg. Six neatly coiled kegs on line, no problem at all...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

Spend a couple of years here and you will find that extremely few folks get a good pour using 1/4" ID beer lines. Like, apparently only one.

And l would not recommend following the guidance provided by Beersmith et al as they are fundamentally flawed...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

JuanMoore said:

......The problem is that the warmer the serving temperature or the more highly carbed the beer, the slower and gentler the pour needs to be to prevent excessive foaming.......

.....Since most homebrewers I've met prefer their beers served slightly warmer than 38°, and might someday want to try carbing a Belgian or Hefe to 3+ vol, following the advice of articles like the ones you linked is generally a bad idea that will result in lots of foam and frustration.

Click to expand...

Well, I recently converted an upright freezer that was being used solely as a fermentation chamber to dual use by adding through the door taps, and a CO2 distributor. With the Holidays coming I have some extra brews I'd like to serve, as well as serve some wine on tap, so I have five new taps. Based on my previous experience of using 1/4" beer lines, I used them in this conversion, too, and I've now seen what you are referring to with the high volume of beer through the faucet. And I have to admit, this puzzled me a little. My pour rate from my older taps is slower than my new taps - by quite a bit. What I discovered is that the shanks have different sized holes through them, and I think that's what's causing the pour rate differences. My new shanks have 1/4" holes, and my old shanks have 3/16" holes. The older taps with the 3/16" holes are apparently providing the resistance, not the tubing in my case. So, now I'll need to be paying attention to what beers I serve out of which tap, until I have time to go back and change (or at least experiment with) the tubing.

Thanks for you perspectives and thoughts.