Despite the *****y title, I am trying to help someone I saw posting to the forum a couple of days ago. I can't find the thread I was in earlier. Hopefully, if this user is still searching for the answer to their issue, they'll stumble on this and get to the same solution I did.
The poster was getting frothy pours. The key symptom was that the beer was also being sucked back into the keg after trying to dispense a glass.
I was having the same issue and thought I'd found the magic thread earlier today. But sadly, all of the advice offered was stuff I had already tried, some of it more than once.
The respondents hit on all the usual suspects:
- Line length
- Temperature
- Overcarbonation
- Balancing
- Serving with too high a pressure
- Serving with too low a pressure
I had tried tinkering with all of that to no avail. Being the good little software tech I am, I came home tonight, determined to isolate the cause. There had to be one key to my issue and I was going to find it.
My symptoms - frothy beer. Beer sucks back into the keg when I am done pouring. And I can see CO2 bubbling into the lines when it is at rest.
I have a highly carbed pils that is my only victim. I tried bleeding pressure over the weekend and serving it at a few PSI below the carb temp. No luck. I tried serving it at the carb pressure. No luck. I tried serving it above the carb pressure. No luck. Shorter lines? nope. Longer lines? Nope. I made sure everything was cold (keg all the way to glass). Nope. I tried a different line and tap? Still foamy. Went the other direction and tried the line from the foamy beer on a keg that was pouring just fine. The beer poured just fine there too. So it wasn't the tap.
So then I went after the keg. I swapped out the lid to make sure I didn't have a leak there. Same result. The damnedest thing is that all through conditioning, this keg was holding pressure. Even if I took the gas QD off it for a day or 2, when I checked the pressure, it was right where I left it.
I even went to a different keg from the same 10 gal batch that had been carbed exactly as that one had. Beer poured perfectly through my balanced system. It had to be something with this keg.
So then I yanked the "beer out" dip tube. Something I had already done, mind you. I took a really close look at my o ring. It looked a little flat on one side. Surely this couldn't be my issue. Everything was holding pressure. And I had no liquid leaks. The o ring looked good, other than the slightly compressed side. I was pretty sure I had replaced all the rings when I filled this keg, but what the hell. It was worth a shot.
I grabbed an extra ring and tightened the liquid post back down. I left the flat one there. I just added a new one for some extra padding.
I pressurized the system and poured a perfect beer with about an inch of head. No frothing. No foaming. No bubbles in the line and no suck back.
My crystal clear pils is a little cloudy because I kicked up some yeast with all my troubleshooting. But it seems like the issue that has been bugging me for the last 3 days came down to a 20 cent o ring. I fear however, that I have allowed enough air into the system that I will have to get through this keg quickly. Darn the bad luck.
So if you're the guy that was looking for advice late last week and over the weekend. The guy whose frustration I heard (and shared) in your posts trying to figure out your foamy beer issue that, like mine, defied all other solutions. I hope you read this.
And I hope you pick up some extra o rings on your way home tomorrow. They sure come in handy.
Cheers.
John
The poster was getting frothy pours. The key symptom was that the beer was also being sucked back into the keg after trying to dispense a glass.
I was having the same issue and thought I'd found the magic thread earlier today. But sadly, all of the advice offered was stuff I had already tried, some of it more than once.
The respondents hit on all the usual suspects:
- Line length
- Temperature
- Overcarbonation
- Balancing
- Serving with too high a pressure
- Serving with too low a pressure
I had tried tinkering with all of that to no avail. Being the good little software tech I am, I came home tonight, determined to isolate the cause. There had to be one key to my issue and I was going to find it.
My symptoms - frothy beer. Beer sucks back into the keg when I am done pouring. And I can see CO2 bubbling into the lines when it is at rest.
I have a highly carbed pils that is my only victim. I tried bleeding pressure over the weekend and serving it at a few PSI below the carb temp. No luck. I tried serving it at the carb pressure. No luck. I tried serving it above the carb pressure. No luck. Shorter lines? nope. Longer lines? Nope. I made sure everything was cold (keg all the way to glass). Nope. I tried a different line and tap? Still foamy. Went the other direction and tried the line from the foamy beer on a keg that was pouring just fine. The beer poured just fine there too. So it wasn't the tap.
So then I went after the keg. I swapped out the lid to make sure I didn't have a leak there. Same result. The damnedest thing is that all through conditioning, this keg was holding pressure. Even if I took the gas QD off it for a day or 2, when I checked the pressure, it was right where I left it.
I even went to a different keg from the same 10 gal batch that had been carbed exactly as that one had. Beer poured perfectly through my balanced system. It had to be something with this keg.
So then I yanked the "beer out" dip tube. Something I had already done, mind you. I took a really close look at my o ring. It looked a little flat on one side. Surely this couldn't be my issue. Everything was holding pressure. And I had no liquid leaks. The o ring looked good, other than the slightly compressed side. I was pretty sure I had replaced all the rings when I filled this keg, but what the hell. It was worth a shot.
I grabbed an extra ring and tightened the liquid post back down. I left the flat one there. I just added a new one for some extra padding.
I pressurized the system and poured a perfect beer with about an inch of head. No frothing. No foaming. No bubbles in the line and no suck back.
My crystal clear pils is a little cloudy because I kicked up some yeast with all my troubleshooting. But it seems like the issue that has been bugging me for the last 3 days came down to a 20 cent o ring. I fear however, that I have allowed enough air into the system that I will have to get through this keg quickly. Darn the bad luck.
So if you're the guy that was looking for advice late last week and over the weekend. The guy whose frustration I heard (and shared) in your posts trying to figure out your foamy beer issue that, like mine, defied all other solutions. I hope you read this.
And I hope you pick up some extra o rings on your way home tomorrow. They sure come in handy.
Cheers.
John
