Initial Foam

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jessebymail

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So I've tried to find an answer and no one seems to have had this "exact" problem, lots of foam problems though. When I pour a beer out of my kegerator the first 1 second of the pour is foam and then after that it looks fine. This ruins the entire pour, which only takes about 3 seconds because of all the foam. This happens every beer no matter how many I pour consecutively. I get a really nice pour after the initial foam though but as soon as i close the tap and open it again it foams.
I have had the beer sitting at 35 degrees, initial 30psi for about 12 hours and then 12 psi for 3 days. 5' of 3/16 beverage hose. Serving at 35 degrees 8psi. This happened 3 days after kegging and is still doing it even after several days of no c02 hooked and purging every 12 hours or so not much pressure releasing when I purge.
Its like I have foam in my hose or in my tap, tap is ice cold too btw. Even tried a chilled glass still lots of foam.
Edit: Ok I poured the foam into a seperate glass and filled another glass with the beer flow, perfect pour... so it is something with the beer that is sitting in the hose or tap, not the despensing system itself.
Could my tap be too warm??? It is cold to the touch and my hose is inside the freezer with a 5" personal fan running 24/7
Oh, and I don't have a tower
 
3/4" seems awful wide. That's my first guess.

Also, what is the height of the tap relative to the top of the keg?
 
So I've come to the conclusion I have the wrong beer line length and carbonation is coming out of the beer (slightly in the hose, mainly in the tap). I went to my LHBS to get a 10' line and we did some math (He had a book and I double checked him 3/16" is around 1.8-2.7lbs per foot), let me know if this is right.
I've got 5' of 3/16 line at 2.2 lbs resistance per foot. 2' from middle of keg to tap so I've got another 2 lbs resistance there. Total 13 psi resistance.
So I set my regulator on 13 psi and foam in the line seems to have decreased considerably but now I'm getting too fast a pour -_-
Beer is carbed at 13 psi so I thought this would work well.

So now my options are to cut my line to 3' and have 8.8lbs resistance so that I can serve at 9 psi (I like this idea but still going from 13 psi carbed to 9 serving will make foam in beer line right). Or I can move to 10' line and have 24lbs resistance, serve at like 13 psi? but then still have the decreased pressure near the tap and foam.
I'm trying to balance my system and I'm at a loss, I might have the entirely wrong idea but you want resistance = serving pressure?
 
Just use the longer line at whatever the equilibrium pressure is. The only downside is that the beer will pour slightly slower with a longer line, which is bad news in a busy bar but not so much at home.:mug:
 
There are several things that cause the CO2 in your beer to come out of solution.
Change in temperature will do it - Like cold beer hitting warm hose/shanks/faucets
Change in pressure - You can carb at 13 and serve at 9, but doing this will cause foam between pours. Because there is only 9psi pushing on the beer in the lines and 13 PSI of CO2 in the beer - assuming the lines are at the same temp as the keg - The CO2 will come out. If the lines are warmer, it gets worse.

I would stick with the calculated length of beer line, and serve at your carbing pressure. This has worked well for me so far...
 
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