Too much foam @ 6psi & naturally carbed keg

When I use normal serving pressure with my naturally carbed keg I get too much foam. If I bleed the pressure, then drop down to 3 or less psi I can fill up a glass without too much foam, but it takes a while.

The beer at this point is well carbed, I just don't want to keep playing this game.

Any advice?

Turning down the psi is not the answer, that will lead to flat beer. What temp are you serving at? How long are your beer lines? What volumes of Co2 are you carbed at?

Serving high 30s. The beer line is about 6' long. The volumes are.... crap I didn't temp adjust when priming. They are pretty high then, about 2.9.

petep1980 said:

Serving high 30s. The beer line is about 6' long. The volumes are.... crap I didn't temp adjust when priming. They are pretty high then, about 2.9.

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That's why. The beer is more highly carbed that what your serving lines will handle without foaming. You'll either need to just keep adjusting the pressure for the pour, or get much longer beer lines.

Yikes at 39F you should be serving at 17psi, your beer is over carbed! I would bleed all pressure out of tank and re-bleed every hour or so for a while. Depending on the beer type, you should be serving at around 10-12 psi, that's 2.3-2.4 volumes of C02.

YooperBrew said:

That's why. The beer is more highly carbed that what your serving lines will handle without foaming. You'll either need to just keep adjusting the pressure for the pour, or get much longer beer lines.

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I did this on my american stout too which is still priming.

I just primed with the regular priming sugar package you get from everywhere.

Keep in mind this is already carbed with the priming sugar. I get a little confused when combining that with the CO2 regulator.

petep1980 said:

I did this on my american stout too which is still priming.

I just primed with the regular priming sugar package you get from everywhere.

Keep in mind this is already carbed with the priming sugar. I get a little confused when combining that with the CO2 regulator.

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Keep in mind that for a keg, you want to use 1/2 the amount of sugar you normally would for bottling. For a stout, I'd use about 3.7 ounces of sugar to bottle a 5 gallon batch. (You could get by with less, to carb to style). So, for kegging, I'd use less than 2 ounces of priming sugar in a stout. If you used 5 ounces, yep, you'll be overcarbed on that one too.

No reason to get confused with carbing and a regulator. Just set it at serving pressure all the time. Once you get the wrinkles ironed out with the amount of priming sugar, you'll be fine.

6 feet of line is bare minimum, in my opinion, though. My foaming was greatly reduced when I went to 10' lines and some 8' lines.

well this is certainly annoying.

at least overcarbed or not, I know I can just keep it @ serving pressure.

I know this may seem like a dumb question, but you've had it cooling for a couple of day sright? Sometimes it takes a few days to cool to serving temps and co2 to equalize.

he he he... i did not know about using less to carb a keg... explains why i am bleeding the crap out of this octoberfast. tastes good though!

now to order 10 foot lines!

I guess I'll just bleed it and fill up pitchers.

Can anyone quickly explain the principal behind "back pressure" from the beer line?