Just got a Guinness kegerator setup - having some foam issues

[DaveLinger]

Hey everyone.

I bought a kegerator around a year ago, and enjoyed a keg of woodchuck.

Yesterday, I bought the guinness faucet and keg coupler with a keg of guinness, and the guy at the shop told me it would be fine to use with co2 until I get 75/25 gas.

I went home and hooked everything up and set the regulator to 30PSI, as was recommended, and it was PERFECT. The beer poured perfectly and tasted great.

Today, I went out and got a tank of 75/25 beer gas, and brought it home. When I hooked up the tank to my regulator and opened the valve, the regulator made a clicking/popping sound a few times, but seemed to work normally otherwise. I set it to 30psi as well.

That's where the weird stuff started happening. Pressure would creep up by around 5PSI, so I'd have to turn the regulator down and bleed off the excess pressure. Eventually I got it to the sweet spot where it'd sit at 30psi and hold there even as I bled pressure from the keg. Great, right?

Then I went to dispense the beer. it was ALL foam. 100% foam. Two glasses of nothing but foam.

I have no idea what went wrong. Any thoughts?

Edit: I should mention that I am not getting any air in the beer line - it's solid brown. Beer temp is around 38 degrees F.

Edit 2: Running around 10ft of standard micro-matic 3/16" tubing.

Edit 3: It was only the first day or two that I had the keg that the Guinness would dispense and "cascade" properly. Now, with it being all foam, if it sits long enough, eventually it will go down to around half foam - but it takes several minutes.

 

[kzoostout]

I, too, recently bought a kegerator with a nitro set up. I haven't used it yet (waiting for fall and my garage to cool down), but I've done some reading and I think I know what your problem is. Hopefully somebody with more experience/knowledge can chime in and confirm if I'm right.

As I understand it, nitrogen isn't soluble and is used to push the beer at the high pressure without over-carbonating the beer. In other words, the nitrogen doesn't actually dissolve into your beer, pushing the beer through the restrictor plate under high pressure is what gives you the smooth head--but it's still CO2.

If your nitro/CO2 mix is 75/25 and you are at 30psi, you really have approx. 7.5 psi of CO2. By putting your beer under CO2 at 30psi you way over-carbed your beer and that's why you are getting nothing but foam.

I would take the beer off of the tank (maybe even warm it up) and vent it occasionally to bring it back to acceptable carbonation levels. Then I'd hook it back up and try serving.

 

[LLBeanJ]

kzoostout is exactly right. You overcarbed the Guinness by leaving it on 30 psi CO2 for a day. Nitro setups are awesome, but they can be tricky to dial in. Undercarbonated just a bit and you get no foam, overcarbonated slightly and you get an entire glass of foam. The window for the "sweet spot" is pretty narrow. At any rate, shut off the gas and bleed CO2 several times over the next day or three until you can get good pours.

 

[DaveLinger]

Thanks guys! That seems to have done the trick.

 

[michaelsmith269]

I have a question. (I don't know how to post it) but I just bought a kegerator couple days ago off Craig's list. The guy said it was pretty new. So I bought a 61/2 foot beer line the keg is sitting in about 38 degrees. I have a budlight 1/4 keg (just to test it out.) and I get about 1/2 foam. And running about 8psi with co2 any Idea how to fix it. And the beer will also taste a little flat some times.

 

[kzoostout]

michaelsmith-

It sounds like your line is short. Dropping your pressure will make the beer flat. Eight psi at 38 degrees would give you 2.2 volumes of CO2, which is the very bottom end of what is recommended for lagers. I'm running 10-11 psi at 38 degrees with approx 9 feet of 3/16 interior diameter beer line. This website is awesome for figuring out what you need and explaining how to determine your pressure.

http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/

 

[Takuie]

michaelsmith-

It sounds like your line is short. Dropping your pressure will make the beer flat. Eight psi at 38 degrees would give you 2.2 volumes of CO2, which is the very bottom end of what is recommended for lagers. I'm running 10-11 psi at 38 degrees with approx 9 feet of 3/16 interior diameter beer line. This website is awesome for figuring out what you need and explaining how to determine your pressure.

http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/

+1. I had severe balancing issues with my kegerator. Tried everything everyone here suggested and got minimal results. Went to website above, plugged in information on set up and bammo! Perfect pours everytime!

One thing to add, may want to consider adding a fan to blow cool air up inside the tower, these lines tend to warm up a little and will cause a little foam on the first pour.

 

[michaelsmith269]

Hey I appreciate this guys! It's been a real struggle to get this thing going. And do you know where a can get a less expensive tower fan

 

[michaelsmith269]

I tried that website did what it told me to do and still half foam. The beer is pouring at 39 degrees. When the beer comes out it just looks like foam but in the line it looks fine. Can the shank or the spout be causing this?

 

[kzoostout]

I can't really say whether the shank or the spout would cause this. My problems were fixed when I used that website. The only thing that I can say at this point is to set your kegerator to the specs on that website and let things mellow out for a few days.

I overcarbed a keg and had to take it off of the gas and vent it a couple of times over the course of a few days before I could get a decent pour. The symptoms were similar to what you are describing, but if you had it set at 9 psi, I don't see how you could have overcarbed your keg. You might try what I did as a last resort.

 

[michaelsmith269]

I'll try that see what happens. Thanks for the information thou!