Tempted...

I kegged my first batch last Wednesday. WOO!!

I have it chilling and carbonating downstairs in the basement. I set the regulator for 12 psi, and the keezer is set at 38 degrees F.

I'm tempted to go hook up the beer line, and pull a pint off.
Good idea?
Bad idea?

Any reason I should definitely NOT do this?
An inquiring mind wants to know.

I used to check mine frequently when I first started. Gives you an idea of how a beer matures as it ages. I say go for it!

While I like to let mine sit for at least a week and let the sediment settle out and carb up but I would have no problem hitting the tap early. Enjoy!

Gonna go for it. At least I'll get the sediment out of the bottom.

BTW, thanks for the encouragement!

It won't be carbed up yet. If you're like me, you can set the psi at 30 for the first 36 hours or so, then purge and reset to 12 psi. After about 24 hours, it's almost carbed up for those "sneak tastes"!

Okay, wow. Hooked up the out line, checked on the keezer temp (38, good), psi (12, good), and did my first pull. All foam. It came out at a really high rate of speed too. Filled my 20 oz glass with foam in under 2 seconds.

What am I missing? In addition to the above info on temp and psi, I am using 5 feet of line...

JohnnyO said:

Okay, wow. Hooked up the out line, checked on the keezer temp (38, good), psi (12, good), and did my first pull. All foam. It came out at a really high rate of speed too. Filled my 20 oz glass with foam in under 2 seconds.

What am I missing? In addition to the above info on temp and psi, I am using 5 feet of line...

Click to expand...

Hmmm. That doesn't make sense. At psi, it should be ok, even with a short line of 5 feet.

Purge it, and then reset it at 9 psi, and see if that's better.

Will do. Thanks Yoop!!

Tried that, and still came out with all foam. My keezer is an old unit that has three settings: Off, Normal, and Cold. I had it on Cold, and most condensation on the unit was frozen, even though I had the temp regulator set at 38 and the thermometer I had put in there read 38 as well. I just switched the keezer control to 'Normal' and will see if anything changes in there over the next few hours.

As for the tap, I am going to wait until Wednesday to pull her again. It kills me that I just wasted 2+pints.
If I can't figure it out, at least I have great smelling shaving cream!

Need to calm my nervous noobishness. Having a bitters from my last session.
Cheers everyone, and thanks.

You didn't waste two pints- if you wait, the foam will turn into a little beer. At least taste it!

I consulted a carb chart again. With 38 degrees, a 9 psi will give you 2.24 volumes or so. Of course, it won't be carbed to that level yet, but that's the projected volume. I wonder if the beerline is so short that it can't manage that, or if your beer is colder than the fridge temp (maybe really cold in one area).

When you sample again, purge it, and reset to a very low pressure to serve, like 2-3 psi. That should reduce any foaming. That way, you can get a sample while you figure out your line balancing.

What is the inner diameter of the line you're using?

Also due to the short line I would definitely reduce pressure to maybe 6 PSI and go up from there if it seems flat.

The ID of my lines is 3/16.

Right now, I have the regulator set to 9 psi. I'm not going to touch it again until Wednesday. It's just been a long day (sat in 2 hours of traffic trying to get back to CT from Long Island, and the Throgs Neck Bridge was closed. Oh, and all the traffic had to go through one lane to get onto the Whitestone), and I don't think I have the capacity to troubleshoot right now unfortunately.

Thankfully, I did drink whatever beer was left wehn the foam died down (never waste a drop!!), and I'm feeling pretty good (after I also had my bitters, a Harpoon Cider, and a Guinness).

Thank you guys for your help and guidance.

I'll tell you another trick. Switch off the CO2 line to the keg, purge a good bit of CO2 from the keg and then try serving. Just make sure you remember to hook the CO2 back up to it.

Eureka! (I think and hope).

I believe I discovered what the problem is. I indeed had my temp regulator set at 38 degrees, and where I had my thermometer in the keezer indeed read a steady 38 degrees. My thermometer was sitting on the 12" bump where the compressor is...

That's also where the probe for my temp regulator was sitting.

So last night, I placed the thermometer at the bottom of the keezer just to check. This morning, as I was running out the door, I decided to check on it. The thermometer read 26 degrees at the bottom of the keezer.

Before leaving, I repositioned the temp regulator probe at the bottom of the keezer. So now, I hope that all I have to do is wait for the beer to thaw out, and I will be good to go.

However, last night, I had turned the psi from 12 down to 9. Should I crank it back up to 12?

Update

So my beer has since thawed, but my foaming problem continues. I had reset the PSI to 12 for a day, and went back to it yesterday. Still a full glass of foam at a high rate of output.

Last night, I purged the tank and reset the regulator for 6psi, hoping that this will help.

In preparation that this does not help the situation, I went to the LHBS today and bought a 10' length of 3/16" line. I figured if this didn't work, maybe I just needed a longer line for some reason.

I really hope I don't have to go back to the drawing board. I hate drawing.

Have you read this thread? This seems like a pretty cheap solution to keeping decent pressure and still slow down the flow (which seems to be your issue).

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/cure-your-short-hose-troubles-100151/

Thanks Killer. I did see that, but I was hoping that I could rectify the situation with the tools I had at my disposal first. If my current attempts don't work, I will likely try that next.

Are you sure that you purged the pressure off the keg before you lowered the regulator to 9psi? If you didn't purge it all the way, you may have greater than 9psi in the keg which would cause excess foam.

I'm sure I purged all of the pressure. I left the valve open until it was no longer releasing anything. Thanks though, Bopper. I will be going to the gym after work in a half hour, rush through a workout to go home and test her out again.

Warm taps also give you a bit more foam.
Pull a glass (of foam) and pull another glass right after - against the side of the glass at 45 degrees - does that help?
Is the 3/16 line actually thick-walled beverage tubing?
Full on-full off? - no 'milking' -
(things I've run into, personally)

fingers crossed for you!

Update 7/21/09

I have not fixed my issues yet. Every pull is a full glass of foam at a high rate of speed. I have tried lowering the PSI down and that did not work.

Today I installed a longer beer line. I had 5 feet on there, today I doubled it to 10. No change. I can't imagine what is causing this, but it's really pi$$ing me off. Just before I purged the keg and lowered the PSI to 1 to just push the beer out.

Guess what. All effing foam.

I sent an email to the folks at keg connection to see if they had any ideas and to see if they could possibly have used any cleaning elements that, if I hadn't removed them all, would cause beer to foam up like this.

Just about to throw in the towel and buy a sixer of bud cans...

Could your regulator be wonky?

You should take pics for us. Odd question... Are you pulling the handle toward you all the way. Some taps do foam if you only open them part way or push them away from you...

Also, I doubt anything that would have been used as cleaner would do this. I run cleaner through my lines and don't have issues.

Pull the handle to clear the beer lines, then when the line fills back up with beer check for small bubbles. If they start collecting towards the top of the line then yep, your regulator is shot. I had the same problem and a new regulator was the fix.

I have already replaced the low pressure gauge on the regulator. The one I go with the unit was damaged.

As for the tap, I've been opening it all the way. I had been noticing a stuttering in the flow when I held it all the way open. Today when I was replacing the lines, I removed the faucet to look at it closely. Turns out there was an o-ring in addition to the rubberized built-on washer. The o-ring was not properly fitted for the unit, so I removed it.

I figured that, with the o-ring removal and the line replacement, I would have this thing licked. Not so. Not so.

hmm. You are hooked to the out on the keg, yeah? This can also happen if there's a leak or something letting air in when the beer is being drawn. It would pull a little beer and make it all foam. I would check all your seals. This could happen if there was a hole or an issue with the o ring on the dip tube. Just think of trying to suck a drink through a straw with a hole in it.

hmm, that's something I hadn't thought of. I'm going to go check on those o-rings.

I'm definitely hooked up to the out side. Imagine if that was it?

Thanks for your suggestion, CV.

I am with carnevoodoo on this. It sounds like you have a leak in the liquid line, probably in the keg around the o-ring. If it was in the line itself or the tap, it would be leaking beer out when under pressure.
Just kind of thinking out loud here though. Makes a lot of sense though that sucking in gas as the beer passes like a venturi would very effectively aerate your beer.

The O-Ring on the out peg is fine. What else should I be looking at? These are brand new beer lines, and it occured on the first set of beer lines I installed too.

I purged the keg and removed the lid to see if I could see anything in there. Within 30 seconds, it began foaming up and out the lid. Is this normal?

I thought kegging was easier than bottling. At this time, I disagree.

Foaming up and out of the lid?! Is this beer still fermenting?! I suppose it is now too cold for that, but geez, that's not normal at all. It sounds like you maybe have an infection? I am baffled on this one.

Also, on the out peg, there are two seals. One is on the outside, and the other would be under the peg itself, where the dip tube meets the keg. You'd need a wrench to unscrew it to see it.

Wait, did you still have the co2 connected? Are you sure you are connecting properly to in and out?

Foaming out of the lid? I wouldn't expect that.. after you let the glass sit for a few... does it taste OK? Is it still carbonated or kinda flat?

No, the co2 was certainly disconnected.

After I let the glass sit and the beer settles, it is barely carbed, and tastes fine.

There's got to be something wrong with the beer. If you relieve all the pressure, it does not foam up out of the keg.

JohnnyO said:

No, the co2 was certainly disconnected.

After I let the glass sit and the beer settles, it is barely carbed, and tastes fine.

Click to expand...

Hrmm, thats not good. That much foam you would think the beer would have plenty of carbonation. Do you see foam in your lines or do you see beer?

My thought here is that if you are pouring and see pure beer in the lines, the foam action is happening at the faucet and after (rough connection causing agitation, warm lines, warm faucet, warm glass, etc.. just thoughts)

If you see foam in the line, then maybe your dip tube has a whole in it, rough connection to the poppet valve? Bad connection on the disconnect to the post, bad connection from the disconnect to the hose?

Just flowing some thoughts on paper... kind of an interesting issue!

I was thinking your regulator was screwy and lying to you about the pressure... but if it was way higher then it appeared, then your beer would be super carbed instead of lightly carbed.

That was my initial thought too, that my regulator was under reporting (cooking the books, if you will). I don't think that's the case though.

The beer in the line is beer, not foam. I wonder if it could be the faucet connection. I bought this off of craigslist. There was an extra o-ring in the faucet, so I wonder if that was his fix to some type of problem (I didn't see any change in my problem after its removal).

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to upgrade my faucet so soon.

You don't have a picnic tap laying around, do you?

Unfortunately no. Just the tower faucet.

Good idea though. I should invest in one at some point if only to test this type of thing out.

The rate at which the liquid is coming out leads me to believe the faucet is not providing the necessary resistance. If the rate is not slowing when I lower the pressure...

I really hope to resolve this issue ASAP.
A. This is frustrating.
B. I want to drink my beer.

I would take it all apart and make sure there's not a small hole anywhere. And then if you have silicon lubricant I would grease everything up and put it all back together.

carnevoodoo said:

You don't have a picnic tap laying around, do you?

Click to expand...

+1 on this. I do a lot of troubleshooting in my work, and it is always useful to eliminate problem areas.

If you hook up a picnic faucet and continue to have problems, you can eliminate your current faucet as the problem source.

If the picnic faucet pours correctly, then you can focus on your current faucet.

Good luck.