Has this happened to anyone?

Between kegs, I thoroughly clean and sanitize the beer lines, faucets, etc.
Once I hook up my new keg, I get perfect pours. But after about a week, I get nothing but foam.
When I first built my 'rator, I was getting nothing but foam, but when I would tap new kegs I would get encouraged thinking maybe I didn't have to cut my beer lines to balance. But like I said, after a week or so, foam city.

Does this happen to anyone else? Could it be that I need to clean more often then between keg changes? I go through a keg in about 3-4 weeks.

Does not sound like a cleaning issue. More likely temperature and pressure changes causing over-carb of your beer by the end of a week.

Frinkey said:

Between kegs, I thoroughly clean and sanitize the beer lines, faucets, etc.
Once I hook up my new keg, I get perfect pours. But after about a week, I get nothing but foam.
When I first built my 'rator, I was getting nothing but foam, but when I would tap new kegs I would get encouraged thinking maybe I didn't have to cut my beer lines to balance. But like I said, after a week or so, foam city.

Does this happen to anyone else? Could it be that I need to clean more often then between keg changes? I go through a keg in about 3-4 weeks.

Click to expand...

How do you carbonate your beers? What pressure are you serving at? Sounds to me like the beer is continuing to carbonate over the week it sits in the kegerator.

Mike

Frinkey said:

I would get encouraged thinking maybe I didn't have to cut my beer lines to balance.

Click to expand...

Cutting the lines is not how to balance the keg. To balance the keg and maintain the carbonation level you need to know the beer temperature in the keg. Draw two glasses one right after the other taking the temperature of the second pour. Then set your regulator to whatever pressure you need to maintain the correct volume of co2 according to that temperature. This link is as good as any to find that pressure. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/carbonation.html

You want no less than 5' of 3/16" line, but as a general rule, 2'/psi of co2 will give enough restriction for good pours. Use beer line from Micro Matic or some other good supplier not regular plastic hose.

Also resist the urge to Starsan your lines. Just a good cleaning with BLC or such is fine. I do not Starsan my kegs either. You want to carbonate your beer but not do anything to make foam. Once you have foam, you cannot pour clear beer through it without making more foam.

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

Cutting the lines is not how to balance the keg. To balance the keg and maintain the carbonation level you need to know the beer temperature in the keg. Draw two glasses one right after the other taking the temperature of the second pour. Then set your regulator to whatever pressure you need to maintain the correct volume of co2 according to that temperature. This link is as good as any to find that pressure. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/carbonation.html

You want no less than 5' of 3/16" line, but as a general rule, 2'/psi of co2 will give enough restriction for good pours. Use beer line from Micro Matic or some other good supplier not regular plastic hose.

Also resist the urge to Starsan your lines. Just a good cleaning with BLC or such is fine. I do not Starsan my kegs either. You want to carbonate your beer but not do anything to make foam. Once you have foam, you cannot pour clear beer through it without making more foam.

Click to expand...

Adjusting the length of beer line is the way you balance a system. Beer temperture and carbonation levels are the factors that we decide and line length is adjusted to balance the system. The link you provided tells you at what pressure you need to carbonate your beer but has nothing to do with a balnced system.

According to the link you provided a Dunkelweisen needs to be carbed at about 4 volumes, at 40 degrees that means you would need your reg set a 29 psi, I can promise you that with 6 feet of line you will get foam. You also don't want 60 feet of line (2' per psi), I would think about 25 feet would give you a good pour. 2'/psi doesn't make sence, that would mean to carb an avg beer at 2.5 volumes at 40 degrees the regulator would need to be about 12 psi...24 feet for this system and I doubt you would get beer out any faster than a trickle, 5 to 6 feet would be more appropriate.

Here is a good read:
http://www.pjmuth.org/beerstuff/Kegging.pdf

Mike

Adjusting the line length for each beer is seriously AR. I have 12' of 3/16ths on the beer taps and never change them. I can live with slightly slower pours.

As far as the OP's problem, I suspect the carbonation level is creeping up over the first week. How are you carbonating the kegs?

david_42 said:

Adjusting the line length for each beer is seriously AR. I have 12' of 3/16ths on the beer taps and never change them. I can live with slightly slower pours.

Click to expand...

Agreed, I don't change my line length either but to say 2'/psi or to use the referenced chart is not the way to balance a system or trouble shoot a problem with foam. I use 6' at 40 degrees and set my regs to about 10 psi and get a great pour. The wheat beers aren't carbed at style guidlines but I don't care.

I disagree with about everything in the reply....don't use Starsan? I use Starsan in everyone of my kegs with no issues as do thousands of people. Once you have foam you can't pour clean beer? Not sure that makes any sence.

Mike

Sorry Mike. I didn't mean to upset you. I said as a general rule. The web page I linked is not unlike the old fashioned chart here. http://www.zahmnagel.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=HuVGZ8tLaow=&tabid=77

I have 5 feet of line in my kegerator and serve the styles I brew just fine with no foam issues. Again, line length does not balance the keg. I'll agree with you it will balance the system though. But from the OP, assuming the keg was carbonated correctly to begin with he has good pours the first week so the line length would be good. But as the carbonation level is possibly changing over this week long time frame I went with temperature/co2 pressure.

I use the set it and forget it method to carbonate. I hook up to 12 psi and let it carb for about two weeks. For the record I have 5 feet of 3/16 beer line (not cheap plastic). And yes, I do have a blower cooling the tower. The first week or so of a new keg is the only time I don't get a glass full of foam and from everything I've read I figured I was going to need to balance the system by cutting the beer lines to an appropriate length. Is this untrue? If so what issue does everyone think I'm actually having?

i have 10' lines, always cleaned with 'san in-between, never massive foam. reg's set at 10psi

Sounds more like a balancing issue than a cleaning issue. My lines are 8 foot, 3/16", 12psi at 40*F. And I get perfect pours.