Keg Emergency!

[colinwilson]

I recently bought a co2 system for sipensing draft beer. We hooked it up to a 15 gal keg of beer and the beer comes out all foam. I know we need to ballance the system but have no idea what to set the PSI to to fix this problem. We are using 5 feet of 1/4 inch tubling on the beer out side. What pressure should we set the co2 tank to for this to work?

 

[homebrewer_99]

Too much foam is from the pressure being set too high.

The first thing you have to do is drop the pressure to 0 and release all the pressure already in the keg.

A friend of mine sets his pressure at 0 and opens up the tap...then he slowly raises the pressure and stops when he has a good flow.

 

[colinwilson]

ok so what pressure should I bring it up to? I read at once place that 10-12 is where you want to be.

 

[Bobby_M]

If you want the beer (you haven't mentioned which style) to maintain carbonation, you'll have to keep it in the 7-12 PSI range for at least most of the storage time. If you want to set and forget, you'll need about 7 feet of 3/16" beer tubing.

 

[Bearcat Brewmeister]

I created this line length and pressure calculator for just this problem. Gives correct line balancing as you requested in your original post.

Assuming from OP that you are tapping a keg of American Lager (since you mentioned 15 gallon keg), you balance with 1/4" line by using 12 feet at 10 psi and 36 degrees. That drops to 3 feet for 3/16" line which is why BobbyM recommended it. 1/4" line sould only be used is you have long runs or you are tapping Scottish Ale which requires very little carbonation (I use 8" of 1/4" line on my Wee Heavy at 3.5 psi).

If you are stuck with that beer line, 5.5 psi will balance it, but the beer will be undercarbonated if it is an American Lager. It would end up with Ale-like carbonation. As homebrewer_99 mentioned, you'll have to bleed the keg first. Also, to reduce foam you need to make sure that the beer line is always sloping up at all points towards the tap. If you have dips in the line, CO2 will settle at the point above that and cause foam when you tap the next glass.

 

[BierMuncher]

I don't see any solutions until you replace that 1/4" with 3/16ths inch.