Foam at both ends of my line

Okay, I'm new to the site, so bear with me if this has been addressed in the past.

I have been kegging in the same Pepsi corny keg for a year now, and all has been good so far. Last brew, however, I ended up with an extremely foamy batch. I had in the line foam at the keg coupling and at the base of the shank at ALL times between pours. I ended up wasting a good portion of the batch because I had to drain the line before I could start pouring my beer. I eventually swapped to my cooler tap, but still had the same problem.

Now, I know my regulator isn't broken, and I know I didn't over-carbonate. When that batch was done, I broke the keg down, sanitized, checked all of my washers, and swapped the lines for this new batch, but I'm getting the same problem again!

This is horrible! I have to stare at the beer through the lines and know that I will waste it. Plus, it's just plain annoying as hell. Any thoughts?

did you notice any pin hole in your pick up tube ?

and double check your poppet.

I didn't check my pick-up tube, but I will now. How can I tell visually if my poppet is bad. It looks like its fits well enough.

I know that the foam is concentrating at each end because they're the high spots in the line, and the beer is falling because of a lack of pressure. What I can't figure out is how I'm losing enough pressure so that the line won't stay filled.

Oh, and thank you, by the way.

look at the rubber portion of the poppet for cracks.

and with your pick-up tube I would start at the lip where the o-ring sets.

I cannot think of any other reason why you are having this problem.

-Jason

Well, I checked the rubber portion of my out poppet and it's intact –*no signs of cracking or any other form of distress. My pick-up tube is tight, and its O-ring is also in good condition. The only thing I can think of is that maybe something got knocked around and misshapen during a cleaning. After all, this problem started after I sanitized.

Thank you for all of the input, though. You guys certainly made a ton of sense. The output is pulling CO2 into the line somewhere at the poppet/pick-up tube. I can see that now when I look at it. The foam caused by the CO2 rushes its way across the top of the tube and causes the tap to pour furiously, even when I am at 2 lbs. The foam eventually settles at each end of the line, and dooms my next pour to start with more foam! At least now I know what the problem is, even if I don't know where it is originating.

At this point I'm about ready to just go buy a new keg rather than buy a new poppet AND a new pick-up line, since I don't know which is the source of the CO2 intrusion.

I recently had the same problem...bubbles in my beer line. Since then, I realized I over carbed my beer. I force carbed it and, when I pour, a lot of foam in the glass and bubbles in the line that end up as empty spaces in the line. How do you carb your beer. If you force carbed it, it may be over carbonated. Unless you have beer spewing about, I bet you have the same problem as I did. All I had to do was d/c the CO2 to the keg and bleed pressure off for a day or so. Check out the topic "Bubbles in my beer line" in this forum. It might be the way to go.
Cheers

Holy crap! Problem solved! I didn't think for a second my beer could be over carbonated, but I guess I was wrong. I also force carb, usually with 40 lbs into a cold keg that I shift and roll around over the course of a day. The past two batches, however, I have set it at 40 lbs before the keg was cold and left it unattended to cool in the fridge for two days. I assumed that the warm beer wouldn't accept the gas as readily, and that by the time the keg was cold, it would roughly even out. I also assumed that keeping the keg still –*therefore keeping the exposed surface area to a minimum – would help this. I guess I had some faulty assumptions.

I am happy to announce that after two days of bleeding off excess gas, my beer no longer pours straight foam, but it is still carbonated to style.

So I am going to use the money you saved me on a new keg and buy a membership to this site. That seems like a better investment for my brewing.

I'm glad to hear that it helped. This site is awesome for information and friendliness from members. I am going to try the set-it-and-forget-it method for the next keg and see how the carbonation is. Have a great week.