Foamy Beer from Kegerator from Commercial Keg

[spacey]

I've been brewing for a few years and have my homebrew lines set up nicely and it pours the way I want it - but yesterday I bought a 5 gallon commercial keg from a brewery and it's 50% foam every time.

The commercial beer is a sour ale with a commercial keg D style connector that I just bought from a store, I cut my beer lines and placed the gas and beer lines on the keg. The beer lines are 8 foot vinyl in a double tap tower, I replaced them yesterday after reading a forum about how 6 feet is too short and increased the beer line length to 8 feet.

The keg seemed cold, it also sat overnight for 10 hours undisturbed. I read it could be a missing washer in the D connector but I don't see anything missing. There is a small black rubber washer in the connector just under the vertical beer line from the commercial keg. There are small bubbles in the beer lines, the foam comes out very fast like the PSI is too high, the first half of the pour is foam and the second half of the very quick pour is liquid. I've tried 5 PSI and up to 15 PSI with not much change.

The tap is a perlick with adjustable flow on it, and that doesn't seem to help at all. Temp is right around 38F. I released the gas from the commercial keg several times to see if it was overpressured.

The homebrew out of the cornelius keg still pours well with the same lines and temp. The beer doesn't taste overcarbonated. You can see the small bubbles in the line in the next to last image below. It doesn't seem to change at 5 PSI or 12 PSI.

 

[spacey]

Just replaced the connector at the top of the comm keg and used keg lube.
I think it may be the keg temp, the beer is coming out at 48 F.

 

[garvinator70]

purge the keg before you pour

 

[doug293cz]

If the pour seems excessively fast, then you don't have enough line resistance (i.e. the lines are too short) for the pressure/carb level. Is the beer tubing ID the same for your Sankey connector as for your corny keg(s)?

After losing a large part of its carbonation to foam during the pour, an initially overcarbed beer will not be overcarbed any more.

Brew on

 

[bracconiere]

is this a craft keg? i had a tweaker working at a brew pub once that filled me up with half foam because aparently he didn't know how to fill a keg...

 

[spacey]

If the pour seems excessively fast, then you don't have enough line resistance (i.e. the lines are too short) for the pressure/carb level. Is the beer tubing ID the same for your Sankey connector as for your corny keg(s)?

After losing a large part of its carbonation to foam during the pour, an initially overcarbed beer will not be overcarbed any more.

Brew on

It may have been partially line resistance at first, I did change my 6 foot, 3/16" ID vinyl lines to 8 feet for a couple of days, and then to 12 feet. All new line. Still foam and air pockets in the line that would form about a minute or so after each pour.

It looked like what happens with overcarbed beer that I brew, but I think it was probably air getting in to the lines from a sealing issue. I know what overcarbed beer tastes like and it didn't have that weird cardboard strange taste.

After a few days, the issue was resolved with help from Day-Trippr.

I believe it was a cheap coupler I bought from my local homebrew store, I then replaced it with another cheap $32 Amazon D-style coupler and added quick connect adapters to it. That only made it worse. Beer started foaming out of the adapter and a few pints ended up on the floor, slowly foaming out of the adapters.

I finally bought the low profile sanke coupler in the photo here for $50. There must have been air getting into the beer line through the bottom seals of the regular D-style coupler and/or through the adapters I bought for $7 each.

Either way, this coupler takes those connections out of the equation. The commercial sanke keg is pouring perfectly now.

Thanks everyone!!!

 

[spacey]

It may have been partially line resistance at first, I did change my 6 foot, 3/16" ID vinyl lines to 8 feet for a couple of days, and then to 12 feet. All new line. Still foam and air pockets in the line that would form about a minute or so after each pour.

It looked like what happens with overcarbed beer that I brew, but I think it was probably air getting in to the lines from a sealing issue. I know what overcarbed beer tastes like and it didn't have that weird cardboard strange taste.

After a few days, the issue was resolved with help from Day-Trippr.

I believe it was a cheap coupler I bought from my local homebrew store, I then replaced it with another cheap $32 Amazon D-style coupler and added quick connect adapters to it. That only made it worse. Beer started foaming out of the adapter and a few pints ended up on the floor, slowly foaming out of the adapters.

I finally bought the low profile sanke coupler in the photo here for $50. There must have been air getting into the beer line through the bottom seals of the regular D-style coupler and/or through the adapters I bought for $7 each.

Either way, this coupler takes those connections out of the equation. The commercial sanke keg is pouring perfectly now.

Thanks everyone!!!

Unfortunately, the keg was at its last few pints when it began pouring perfectly.

In the end, the real issue was that the beer was in a commercial sanke keg. Something about that ball connection induces CO2 to come out of solution at low, medium and high serving pressures.

I experimented with transferring half of a new keg from the brewery into one of my cornelius kegs that I know work well with my homebrew and has quick disconnects. That showed me that the beer pours 100% normally through my corny keg, while the other half in the commercial keg still poured foamy.

Transferring the brewery's beer into my keg made a perfect pour every time, I set my serving pressure to 10 PSI with 12' vinyl lines and enjoyed brewery beer at home at a fraction of the price.