exessive foam while bottling from the tap with a floating dip tube

[odie]

Just started using floating dip tubes. I'm having some issues bottling beers off the tap.

Specifically, I'm "counter pressure" filling bottles using a long hose over the faucet nipple which seals the bottle to control flow and foaming. Using some of the "we don't need no stinking beer gun" methods. Works great with a regular dip tube.

What is happening is the first bottle is filled no problem. The second bottle will often fill halfway and then nothing but CO2 and wet foam out the tap. If I'm doing a growler it happens around 1/2 filled. This only happens with kegs using a floating dip tube. My regular long dip tube kegs I can repeatedly bottle several beers or growlers no issues.

My theory....the floating dip tube pick up is just below the surface. When you tap a beer the head space pressure is reduced, causing a brief layer of foam to develop inside the keg. This foam lifts the float which lifts the pick up just enough to rise above the liquid level and into the foam layer. If I leave it alone for a bit, I can resume tapping as normal. My guess is the foam dissipates and the float drops the pick up point below the surface again.

 

[burtom]

Just started using floating dip tubes. I'm having some issues bottling beers off the tap.

Specifically, I'm "counter pressure" filling bottles using a long hose over the faucet nipple which seals the bottle to control flow and foaming. Using some of the "we don't need no stinking beer gun" methods. Works great with a regular dip tube.

What is happening is the first bottle is filled no problem. The second bottle will often fill halfway and then nothing but CO2 and wet foam out the tap. If I'm doing a growler it happens around 1/2 filled. This only happens with kegs using a floating dip tube. My regular long dip tube kegs I can repeatedly bottle several beers or growlers no issues.

My theory....the floating dip tube pick up is just below the surface. When you tap a beer the head space pressure is reduced, causing a brief layer of foam to develop inside the keg. This foam lifts the float which lifts the pick up just enough to rise above the liquid level and into the foam layer. If I leave it alone for a bit, I can resume tapping as normal. My guess is the foam dissipates and the float drops the pick up point below the surface again.

Try a 7/16 stainless steel nut on the floating dip tube line. I had quit using my floating dip tubes due to them sticking to the sides of the keg. Then read in some post on this site about kegmenters that someone was using a 5/16th stainless steel nut on his lines and it cleared the problems.

Edited nut to 7/16ths. Sorry.

 

[odie]

thought about some kinda extra weight...or extension

 

[Bobby_M]

I use floating diptubes in my Fermonsters so I have the luxury of seeing what the float is doing while draining and the springy hose pushes end of the tubing against the sidewall and keeps it from dropping down as the beer dispenses. I think adding weight to the float tube would help.

 

[odie]

Y'all add the weight to the pickup end or somewhere in the middle of the hose?

 

[VikeMan]

Y'all add the weight to the pickup end or somewhere in the middle of the hose?

I don't worry about where the weight (in my case a washer) starts, because the float will naturally float and the washer will naturally slide down the tubing and settle at the bottom of the U-shape of the hose.

 

[odie]

Makes sense...you want to keep the tubing down so that air pockets can bleed out

 

[EDF713]

I've used a stainless steel nut like burtom said earlier, but a 5/8 slid over the metal tube between the hose and the ring that attaches to the float.

Since switching to the plastic filtered ends I haven't needed the weights.

 

[Oleson M.D.]

We always add two stainless steel washers, right near the floating ball. Otherwise, you will pick up air (CO2) as the tube will touch the surface of the beer once in awhile.