Foaming Beergun!

[Blauwkonein]

New to kegging and having a couple of questions and problems.

1. Does overcarbonated beer have anything to do with foaming while using a beergun? The main issue now is that when I try to fill the bottles after two weeks at the correct temperature / psi, I get bottles full of foam. Only foam. Also the beverage line fills up with foam almost entirely when I hook up the beergun to the keg.

2. If the beer would be overcarbonated, this would mean that after filling a bottle of foam, letting it sit for a few minutes and pouring it into a glass, the remaining beer in the glass would have a lot of carbonation, right? This is not the case, which leads me to think that overcarbonation is not the problem.

3. I tried using the beergun in different settings, all yielding the same extreme foam results. I first put the pressure on about 5 PSI, then tried without any pressure. What I don't understand in the second option, is when I closed the Co2 tank, released all the pressure from the keg and filled a bottle (with foam), there was still new pressure building up in the keg. Is this normal? Why does this happen?

My bottles were cold and the beer line was 10 ft. This should not be the problem. Whether my beer was overcarbonated or not, why does it fill the complete bottle with foam?

 

[303Dan]

On your second point, the answer is no, if you pour with that much foam, the resulting beer after everything settles out will still drink flat even if it is overcarbonated in the keg. The reason why you're getting all that foam is because so much co2 is coming out of solution.

Also, if the beer is overcarbed in the keg and you lower the pressure in the headspace, you'll get co2 coming out of solution in the serving lines. Disclaimer, I do not have a beer gun, I have a counter pressure filler, so I can bottle at serving pressure. But the main reason I went that route is so I wouldn't have to take so many lengths to not get excessive foam while bottling or mess with my serving pressure to bottle.

How did you carb your beer? Fast carb by shaking? Or did you set it at your desired serving/carb pressure and let it go more gradually?

Dan

 

[Blauwkonein]

Hmm, so is there any other way to find out if the beer in my keg is overcarbed? If I don't know what the problem is, it is also hard to find the correct solution.

I did not fast-carb by shaking, I set the beer at a desired temp/pressure according to one of those carbonation charts. After a week I raised the pressure and lowered the temperature, cause I thought it was not carbonating. It might be overcarbonation, but could also be something else. If I could find out if the beer is overcarbed, then at least I can work towards a solution. Right now I have a batch sitting in a keg and I basically can't do anything with it. Any leads?

 

[BigBangBrewing]

There's a ton of variables that may cause foaming and it can be incredibly frustrating.

Can you fill a glass from the gun without a huge amount of foam?

 

[molybdenite]

I'm new to kegging as well, but this is what I did to measure the level of carbonation in my keg.

The temperature of the beer combined with the pressure in the keg will tell you the level of carbonation.
Look it up on the carbonation chart.
After the keg has been sitting for several hours at a steady temperature you can measure the pressure with your gas regulator.
With the gas disconnected from the keg set the regulator to pressurize the gas line to 20 psi.
Then turn the knob on the regulator back to 0 psi. The gauge should stay at 20 psi.
Now you can connect the gas QD to the keg and read the gauge to see what the pressure in the keg is.
To be sure you could wait another few hours and see if the pressure is changing over time.

Pressurizing the gas line before connecting the QD will prevent beer foam from blowing back into your gas line.

Part of your foaming beer problem could the initial temperature of the beer line. Did you chill the beer line and the gun?
The cold beer will chill the line and gun so the second bottle you pour might go much better.

One other thing, the Blichmann beer gun instructions say you need to pull the beer trigger quickly to full open.
Slowly pulling the trigger will make the foaming worse.
So you could try that.