Foaming with Picnic Tap

[bechard]

Hey guys,

I just swapped out my keg faucet for a picnic tap for my latest keg of Amber Ale. I wasn't planning on drilling through the fridge door, and the original faucet had come with my kegging kit.

I originally force carbonated my beer for 5 minutes (35 F) at 30PSI, bled the PSI down, and set it to around 15PSI for a week. Last night I tried to pour a glass at 14PSI, and I got a massive glass filling blast of foam, which once settled left me with a half glass of flat beer.

My last brew was carbed up the same way, but was a porter served at 12PSI with my old faucet.

Am I doing something wrong? Not sure what I can do here, and looking for advice.

Thanks!

 

[Randall]

I use 6' of 1/4" I.d. tubing and get great pours at 12 psi. I used to not pay attention to beer line lengths and was getting bad pours, especially when I would let a guest pour their own. Don't half throttle the faucet either.

 

[LKABrewer]

When dispensing with a balanced system, you should be able to set the regulator to the same pressure for carbonating and serving. When using an unbalanced system (such as a picnic tap with short lines), you need to reduce the serving pressure.
When you are serving, bump your pressure down to 5psi and purge the airspace in the keg. When you are finished serving, bump it back up to your carbonating pressure.
This is why most people suggest longer lines; it is a real pain to keep changing the pressure, and you waste a lot of co2.

 

[bechard]

My serving line is about 6 feet in length, and is 3/16 I believe. I would love to use the same pressure (14-15 PSI) for serving and storage.

I always open the tap all the way.

Tonight I'll try to do some calculations with once I can confirm line length and internal diameter of the line. I hope I can get this thing balanced.

My previous setup was 3' of line, where I'm on 6' now.

 

[BrewThruYou]

As LKABrewer said, the system is now unbalanced and you need to reduce the serving pressure. If you plan to use the picnic tap for a while, you'll need to just make one with longer beer line or thinner diameter line (so it'll be more restrictive).

There are some good calculators if you do a search for them for balancing your system.

 

[WAORGANY]

I am using 3/16" lines and have 10' lengths on five taps and 20' on the sixth (kids
Soda) I keep my co2 set at 12lbs set it and forget it works great always have goo pours well carbonated beer love having it on draft!!' good luck

 

[bechard]

Ok,

I just swapped out my 5.5' 1/4 line for my 5' 3/16 line.

PSI in Keg is 12
Resistance is 3 PSI / ft for PVC 3/16"
Using Beer Smith's method:

L = ( keg pressure -1 ) / Resistance

0.733 = 11 / 15

Going to test it now, but seems between 0 and 1 is the sweet spot for balanced pressure, and in my case +0.733 PSI for pouring.

Can't wait till this is nailed down, and I can have a glass of carbed beer.

 

[bechard]

Nailed it! A nice finger of head on top, perfectly carbed Amber Ale in my glass!

Woo! Looks like my 1/4" tubing was throwing me way off, would need a lot more length to balance it. 3/16 @ 5' seems perfect with 12 PSI.

Thanks everyone.

 

[sbsmann]

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