How much foam on first pour do you have?

[Stovetop535]

Trying to troubleshoot my kegerator and some foaming problems. This is my first kegerator, not sure if I have unrealistic expectations for amounts of foam or not.

Brief history--Built the kegerator, decided to go the copper route into the tower on round 1. Ran copper and insulated with spray foam up to the shanks, no forced air. Tried numerous different temp and co2 settings and was getting solid glasses of foam-every time. I took temp readings at the shanks and it was literally room temp in my tower so I got rid of the tower.

I currently have 12' bev seal per keg, a tower fan and a pc fan that circulates in the kegerator itself. The tower fan has brought my tower temps down to the high 40's, and the kegerator sits around 34-36 with the pc fan on. I usually use glasses like these, and right now I have a batch of Graff Cider on tap along with a Belgian Wit. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/1/1/13811-craft-brew-23-ounce-wheat-beer-glasses-set-of-4.html I use the set it and forget it method for carbing, and the gas is set at 14 psi.

I get about 3" of foam per pour, just slightly more than is pictured in the link per glass. First pour and subsequent pours are about equal on amount of foam.

Anything else I can try? My only other thought is turning the gas down and carbing a little lower, but I like the higher carb especially on the wit and the cider.

Thanks
Alex

 

[JuanMoore]

At nearly 3 vol you'd need to really slow the pour down to keep the foam to a minimum. The bev-seal lines have less resistance than standard vinyl lines, so the 12' might not be long enough to do that. You could try replacing them with even longer lines, or adding some epoxy mixer sticks to your diptubes. It sounds like you've covered all of your bases except possibly glass care, which you didn't mention. How are you washing and drying your glasses? Have you tried polishing the inside of the glassware with a cotton bar towel before pouring. Another trick is to rinse the glass with cold water just before pouring a beer.

 

[Stovetop535]

Very basic washing, either just runnin them through the dish washer or hand washing with dawn dish soap-hand drying. I have not read anything about washing techniques of glassware to reduce foam, I will have to read up on that.

I am out of the Bev seal tubing, but I guess I will order another roll and make the lines longer if I have to, although I hope it does not come to that. I already wasted two 7 foot sections on round one, and for round two I just cut what I had left in half and ended up with right at 12' of line.

Would backing the pressure down to 10-12 psi make a big difference? Or would it need to be more like an 8-10 drop?

I will also check into the epoxy mixer sticks in the dip tube. Is that a good long term solution-or more of a short term keg by keg fix?

 

[JuanMoore]

I don't see any reason the epoxy mixer sticks couldn't be a permanent solution. Just one more thing to clean, sanitize, and keep track of every time you change a keg. Might be cheaper and easier than buying another roll of tubing.

Hard to say how much you'd need to lower the carbonation to get a good pour with everything else constant. Since you're only getting a little excess foam, I wouldn't think you'd need to lower it much, but that's just a guess. And just in case you weren't aware, you'd need to disconnect the gas and bleed the kegs several times to lower the carbonation level before dropping the pressure. Just dropping the pressure will cause even more foam issues.

 

[zachattack]

I use 20 feet of the Bev Seal per line, and I've been fine up to 15 psi so far (haven't tried higher). I think you just need longer lines.

 

[Stovetop535]

I think I will start with lowering the pressure a little and improving my glassware cleaning. I just can't stomach ordering more line, at least not yet.

 

[Stovetop535]

Wanted to update this--I lowered my pressure down, purged, ext. and still am having foam problems. Even went out and bought some nice new pilsner glasses and read up on cleaning them, still have foam.

The fedex man dropped off 100' of bevseal yesterday, so tomorrow I will be re doing the lines one more time, and hopefully for the last time. So, how long should they be?

I am leaning towards 20 feet?

 

[DonnieZ]

I got a kegerator for Christmas. From the moment I opened it to the time I poured my first draft of DFH 90 minute, I envisioned perfect pints with a half inch of head that subsided quickly.

Wrong I was....

After a month of fine tuning I found out a few things that affect the Mount of foam I get on pours:

The biggest thing is temperature differential between the beer in the keg and the faucet. As little as a half a degree difference between keg and faucet will cause the CO2 in the beer to want to come out of the liquid, which causes foam.

Since it was just me drinking out of this kegerator for the most part, I'd be pouring a solitary beer, then drinking it, and pouring another maybe 30 minutes later. I found that if I poured about 6-8 ounces in a glass, then poured about 10 ounces in my pint glass, my pint glass would have a decent pour. I'd then pour the original 6-8 ounces in my glass about 5 minutes later when the foam subsided.

Adding a pc cooling fan in a project box with an output hose that went into the draft tower helped somewhat, but the first glass was still mostly foam.

For Super Bowl, I swapped out the DFH 90 for a 1/4th of Miller Lite to appease the masses. My sister in law who pours beer for a living (while pursuing a BA undergrad degree...) figured out that the kegerator runs best if you pour multiple pints in succession. The cold beer running through the lines cools off the lines enough that the temperature differential is close enough to stop the foaming.

I'm basically living with the situation now. I'm pouring Southern Tier 2XIPA at 38 degrees at 12PSI serving on 5' of 5/16" beer lune, and this seems to get a decent pour with a small (4-6) ounce glass of foam first, then a decent pour into a secondary glass (glasses being room temp, and washed by hand or dishwasher).

I have a new draft Tower with two Perlick 525SS faucets that's a little bigger around, so I'm hoping I can get the cooling hose up there a little further. I'd hate to have this problem when I finally get this batch of homebrew on tap.

 

[Stovetop535]

I agree with the temperature differences. There is no doubt that the difference in temp, even with a fan running cold air up there, will cause some foaming, and I am not willing to spend the time, money or effort to try and cool the tower any more than I already have.

What I do know is when I went from 7' lines to 12' lines, the amount of foam per initial pour dropped atleast 50%. I originally was getting 3/4 of a glass of foam. If taking my lines from 12' to 20' can net me another 30-40% reduction in my initial foam amount, I would consider that a win and more than acceptable considering it is a home-made kegerator. Having a slightly slower poor does not bother me. I would rather have a slightly slower poor and drink right away than have to poor a glass and come back to it 5 min later to let the foam die down.

I will snap a pic of my typical pour before I change the lines out. Still thinking 20 (ish) feet.

 

[Stovetop535]

Got the lines switched. Bought so much that I decided to make them extra long this time around, so I cut them to 22'. The pour is extremely slow and only made a marginal difference in foam control. Once the two kegs kick that are currently in there I will cut the lines down a little, probably 18', or 15'. I think that length, with my setup, will give me the best foam control to pour speed ratio. Here are the before and after pics from the lines.

With 12' lines, you can see the foam died down just a little before I got the pic snapped.

And with the 22' lines

I may look into increasing the insulation and airflow to the tower . I think that would be the only way to decrease the foam even more, but for now I am ok with it.

 

[zachattack]

Is that a 22 ounce beer glass? To be honest those both look like perfect pours to me.

 

[DonnieZ]

The other variable that is hard to control is the temperature of the faucet. Until cold beer runs through it, you're going to get that temperature differential and some foaming. If I don't use my taps for a couple of days, the first ounce comes out good, then foam, then the next pour within a few minutes is good.

But I will agree, those look like perfect pours, especially the second one!

 

[Stovetop535]

Is that a 22 ounce beer glass? To be honest those both look like perfect pours to me.

Yeah a 22 ounce wheat glass.


Honestly I am happy with it now. The biggest difference in pours came from the Graff Cider keg. It poured considerably more foam than the belgian wit that I took a pic of.

Like I said, I might shorten the lines just a tad to speed up the pour some, but it wont be much. Overall I am happy with the setup. Now I just need to move the tower fan so its stops vibrating on the side of the fridge.

 

[stpug]

I like your 22' pour the best but both would be fine by my standards. I like some head to my beer since it generally dies back a significant amount fairly quickly.

 

[potsy15]

I'm basically living with the situation now. I'm pouring Southern Tier 2XIPA at 38 degrees at 12PSI serving on 5' of 5/16" beer lune, and this seems to get a decent pour with a small (4-6) ounce glass of foam first, then a decent pour into a secondary glass (glasses being room temp, and washed by hand or dishwasher).

DonnieZ,

My buddy had the same exact problem with the same exact beer (and many other southern tier beers) when he got his kegerator. Switch the 5/16 to 3/16" ID line with 6' of line at 38 Degrees with 12PSI and your problem will be solved. the 3/16" line does the trick.

 

[IvanTheTerribrew]

Those do look like great pours. Not to hijack but does anyone know a link to a threat about wiring a PC fan to a kegerator to help chill the tower?