over-carbonated beer? keg/foaming issues.

I kegged my first beer a little over a week ago. Did the following steps for carbonating:

-transferred beer from secondary to keg
-tightened lid and hooked it up to air
-set at 30psi and put in fridge (~40*) for 24-36hrs
-Purged keg and set to 12psi and let sit in the fridge for 4 more days

Well, this didn't do the trick and my beer was still flat when i tapped it after the 4th day. I got anxious (having friends over to drink), so i set the air to 30psi and shook it up a bit (2 minutes), bled the pressure and set to 12psi and let it sit for an hour. This did the trick for that night, and we were able to drink the beer.

However, the next day i would get all foam at 12psi (yes, the tap handle was fully open). Turned the air down to 5psi and i will eventually get an acceptable pour, but every time i open the tap it's foam foam foam for the first couple seconds (this is at 5psi). There is visible CO2 in the lines (both bubbles and air "gaps"), which im assuming is because it's at such a low serving pressure. The beer tastes pretty good, and i like the carb level, but it seems like it's maybe over-carbonated now and that's the source of the issue.

I've got 10ft of 3/16" line...does it matter how i have it routed in the kegerator? Right now i've got it wrapped around the keg neatly to keep it out of the way. It's a door mount faucet, so the beer lines are cold.

Any suggestions on what to do? This is my first homebrew and it's a little frustrating not being able to enjoy it.

Sounds like you're doing everything right.

I use 10 ft of 3/16" line...and everything just like you. My kegerator temperature fluctuates quite a bit though. When it's cold...it pours smooth...when it warms up a bit...it gets rough again.

If I keep the CO2 connected at 12 psi...the end of the keg tends to foam more. I don't know if this is due to the added headspace or just that the beer starting to get old.

I think you're doing it all right on. You might consider...

Cleanliness... Dirty lines, faucet, glasses can cause more foam.
Temperature...High dispense temp causes more foam.
Calibration...the gauge on the regulator could be off a couple of psi. You can always drop it down a couple of psi to see if that helps.

Just throwing out ideas...

Gritsack:
Force carb on the quick is a difficult thing to master. It's easy to over or under do it. The best carb results I get are from letting it sit on the gas for 2 weeks at serving pressure and temp. Other techniques seem to be problematic. 2 weeks of patience seems to be the magic spot.
Maybe the low pressure gauge is faulty? Have you checked the kegs PSI with anything else? Routing of the lines will affect the resistance, I usually coil mine and let the coil sit on the keg. Up and down runs will add resistance. 10' is plenty.
If it's over carbed, bleed it fully, shake it , bleed it, shake it, bleed, (don't go crazy here) then hook it back up to 12psi. See how it pours after letting it rest for a couple hours. That would have knocked out some of the dissolved co2.

Chuggs, your observation is related to the increased headspace.

Thanks for the suggestions. I shook it and bled a couple time, set it at 12psi and i'm going to let it sit until tomorrow night. I'm still trying to dial in the temp, so hopefully by then it will be cooled down again and carb'ed better

What was the temp of your beer coming out of the secondary? Warmer beer will take longer to carb, and it will take up to 48 hours to cool a keg from high 60's to the low 40's.
I assume your beer was warm if you still had to bleed some of the 30psi off after 24-36 hours.
Thus when you force carbed at serving temp (40), you overcarbed your keg.
As above, patience. I keg from secondary after cold crashing at 40, put it on 30 psi overnight and disconnect from gas, by morning all co2 absorbed. Put it at 11-12psi for 7- 10 days and carbed nicely.
Also, not to nit pick, but you may want to fill and purge your keg a couple times at 20 psi initially after putting the beer into the keg to purge any oxygen out of your keg. This has nothing to do with carbonation, just minimizing the possibility of off flavors from oxidation of your beer.

bendavanza said:

Chuggs, your observation is related to the increased headspace.

Click to expand...

Figured as much...wish my regulator could auto-adjust based on headspace


Oh...something I forgot to mention. It's important to remember that most regulators have a check vavle. So just because you see 12 psi on the regulator...doesn't mean there's 12 psi in the keg. If, for example, the pressure inside the keg is 30 psi...and you've got a CO2 regulator attached that's reading 12psi...the check vavle doesn't allow the 30 psi to reach the gauge. You'll need a direct reading gauge. I made one just by attaching a pin lock disconnect to a gauge..with a few fittings from home depot.

powderbock said:

What was the temp of your beer coming out of the secondary? Warmer beer will take longer to carb, and it will take up to 48 hours to cool a keg from high 60's to the low 40's.
I assume your beer was warm if you still had to bleed some of the 30psi off after 24-36 hours.
Thus when you force carbed at serving temp (40), you overcarbed your keg.
As above, patience. I keg from secondary after cold crashing at 40, put it on 30 psi overnight and disconnect from gas, by morning all co2 absorbed. Put it at 11-12psi for 7- 10 days and carbed nicely.
Also, not to nit pick, but you may want to fill and purge your keg a couple times at 20 psi initially after putting the beer into the keg to purge any oxygen out of your keg. This has nothing to do with carbonation, just minimizing the possibility of off flavors from oxidation of your beer.

Click to expand...

I thought you were suppose to leave the gas ON when force carbonating? not set it at 30psi, then disconnect? At least that's what i've gather from reading around on this site.

I did make the mistake of not allowing the keg to cool down fully before starting to carbonate...live and learn i guess.

Yes, leave the pressure on, otherwise the co2 will absorb and then the pressure is reduced, you want to maintain the pressure.
Chuggs has a good point, sya you set your reg to 30, then turn the knob down to 12, the keg will still be at 30 until either the beer absorbs the extra pressure and the line equalizes, or you pull the pressure release valve on the keg.
-Ben

bendavanza said:

Yes, leave the pressure on, otherwise the co2 will absorb and then the pressure is reduced, you want to maintain the pressure.
Chuggs has a good point, sya you set your reg to 30, then turn the knob down to 12, the keg will still be at 30 until either the beer absorbs the extra pressure and the line equalizes, or you pull the pressure release valve on the keg.
-Ben

Click to expand...

Yeah i do realize that...whenever i lower the pressure, back the regulator all the way out, then purge to the desired psi, then slowly screw the regulator knob back in until i see it catches with the pressure in the tank. Or just back the knob out, purge entirely then adjust.

Just remember serving at an ultra low psi is a temporary fix that will result in flat beer if not corrected. You need to keep your tank at the volumes of C02 it's carbed at, plus the correct serving temp.

problem fixed...i hope.

Last night i shook up and purged the keg a few times to decarbonate, then hooked it back up to the gas at 10-11psi and let it sit over night. I also repositioned the probe for my thermostat temp control from in a glass of water at the bottom of the fridge, to hanging in the air from the top. In theory the glass of water would be more accurate to the beer temp, but i was getting semi-cold beer even with the temp control at sub 40*. Now at least it's reading temps at the warmest point (top of fridge) and keeping everything nice and cold.

ANYWAY, just pulled a pint and it came out almost perfectly at the 10-12psi, no unwarranted foam. Still needs just a tad more carbonation, but another day or so hooked up should do the trick.

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to say something so that an inexperienced brewer could learn from my mistakes. I carbonated my first keg using the shake method (40 degrees for 15 minutes), and, as is often the case, overcarbonated the beer. I went to the internet to look for a solution and, frankly, everything I saw seemed pretty complicated. I read various posts and looked on Youtube, and elsewhere, for an answer. Most credible information settled on releasing the pressure relief valve (PRV). The problem was that no one really gave detailed instructions as to how this could best be done. Some suggested letting the beer warm to room temperature and others said the opposite. Also, how many times and when do you know you've reached the right pressure? Honestly, I was completely lost. Since I realized the problem was in the headspace, I decided to reverse what I did before. I let my keg chill to 40 degrees, I shook it up for about ten shakes, and then I released the PRV. The keg foamed quite a lot, so you need to open the PRV in a place the keg can drain. I did this 4-5 times until I noticed that the foaming seemed to last a shorter time and was noticeably less violent. As I said above, this took 4-5 times-- shaking and releasing the pressure. I set-up my gas line and set the pressure to serving and guess what, the beer was finally pourable. So, if you want to try a simple method, this is it.