smugdawgmillionaire
New Member
I purchased some perlick flow control faucets last spring and finally got around to using them over the summer with two commercial slim barrel sankey's. With these commercial kegs each and every pour was a foam bomb atop flat beer. I'd keep pouring though, and as the tower began to condensate via cooling (I have long neglected a cooling fan. Yes, I do understand how dumb that is) the pours would begin slowly resembling something decent and carbonated without excessive foam. Now, I've been homebrewing a long time and have never had an issue with my carbonation process. My system was stored in a basement that remained very cool year round until this past summer in which I have moved into a new place and now keep the system upstairs. Was always 5' lines with front sealing faucets and worked like a charm until the faucets kept gunking up, thus I bought the new flow control guys.
Basically, I've been homebrewing just fine for quite some time, but am now having to reconcile with one of the more important aspects of beer making that I never really had to deal with. I would always set my beers at 30 psi for a couple days, slowly back the pressure down to serving after those first couple of days, and would always find that that did the trick. A total 'carb' time of 7 days. If the carb wasn't where I wanted it, I'd either bump up the pressure a touch, or bleed it and let it sit a day or two, using 'feel' to dial in my beers. I never worried about line length or learning about ideal pressure.... until now, as this issue is costing me precious elixir.
SO, I need some help and solid educating. My specs: 10 feet of line, 1/4" ID, approx 2.5 feet from the middle of the keg to the faucet. My ideal pressure determination is thus 7.75 #'s. I now have a homebrewed saison on that I kegged three days ago at 30 psi @ 40F. This beer is thus overcarbed when compared to the 7.75. I can also see the carbonation separating from the beer line in the kegerator. How have I gotten away with neglecting this for so long? Is it the flow control faucets or is it the difference in ambient temperature of the basement it was once stored and the room is it now in??
In closing, I dumped a fair amount of the commercial brews off the sankeys to get passed the foam, thinking it was the temp or faucets. What I have on tap now is doomed to the same fate unless I act. From now on I will be using the BeerSmith carbonation tool to carb my beer to a profile via temp and psi, and I will then push the beer at the ideal pressure equation that states 7.75 psi for my system.
Please offer me and advice/criticism/corrections/etc!
Basically, I've been homebrewing just fine for quite some time, but am now having to reconcile with one of the more important aspects of beer making that I never really had to deal with. I would always set my beers at 30 psi for a couple days, slowly back the pressure down to serving after those first couple of days, and would always find that that did the trick. A total 'carb' time of 7 days. If the carb wasn't where I wanted it, I'd either bump up the pressure a touch, or bleed it and let it sit a day or two, using 'feel' to dial in my beers. I never worried about line length or learning about ideal pressure.... until now, as this issue is costing me precious elixir.
SO, I need some help and solid educating. My specs: 10 feet of line, 1/4" ID, approx 2.5 feet from the middle of the keg to the faucet. My ideal pressure determination is thus 7.75 #'s. I now have a homebrewed saison on that I kegged three days ago at 30 psi @ 40F. This beer is thus overcarbed when compared to the 7.75. I can also see the carbonation separating from the beer line in the kegerator. How have I gotten away with neglecting this for so long? Is it the flow control faucets or is it the difference in ambient temperature of the basement it was once stored and the room is it now in??
In closing, I dumped a fair amount of the commercial brews off the sankeys to get passed the foam, thinking it was the temp or faucets. What I have on tap now is doomed to the same fate unless I act. From now on I will be using the BeerSmith carbonation tool to carb my beer to a profile via temp and psi, and I will then push the beer at the ideal pressure equation that states 7.75 psi for my system.
Please offer me and advice/criticism/corrections/etc!