Kegging psi

[SpeedYellow]

It was not temperature. Why do you keep saying that?? See JuanMoore's post above - the only way temp can be a problem is a temp DIFFERENTIAL in the lines (i.e. lines are warmer than the beer). You can set your fridge to 50F and it'll perform just fine; undercarbonated yes, but that won't cause foam.

 

[JuanMoore]

It was not temperature. Why do you keep saying that?? See JuanMoore's post above - the only way temp can be a problem is a temp DIFFERENTIAL in the lines (i.e. lines are warmer than the beer). You can set your fridge to 50F and it'll perform just fine; undercarbonated yes, but that won't cause foam.

You're partially correct. The OP's temp being a couple degrees higher than the 40° he thinks it's at shouldn't cause foaming. Higher temps can cause foaming though, and serving at 50° can indeed cause problems.

As I mentioned above, the warmer the beer is, the more the CO2 wants to come out of solution, and the slower and gentler the pour needs to be in order to prevent foaming. The 4-5' lines that most kegerators come with are based on line balancing calculators used for commercial systems, which assume beer temps of 36° or less. If you keep your beer temp at or under 36°, those short lines will typically work fine for carb levels all the way up to ~2.7 vol. If you bump the temp up just a few degrees, to the 38-40° range (like many of us homebrewers prefer), then you need to double the line length to slow things enough to get a decent pour, even with lower carb levels like 2.4-2.5 vol. This is why you see so many suggestions on this site to use 10' lines.

 

[SpeedYellow]

You're partially correct. The OP's temp being a couple degrees higher than the 40° he thinks it's at shouldn't cause foaming. Higher temps can cause foaming though, and serving at 50° can indeed cause problems.

As I mentioned above, the warmer the beer is, the more the CO2 wants to come out of solution, and the slower and gentler the pour needs to be in order to prevent foaming. The 4-5' lines that most kegerators come with are based on line balancing calculators used for commercial systems, which assume beer temps of 36° or less. If you keep your beer temp at or under 36°, those short lines will typically work fine for carb levels all the way up to ~2.7 vol. If you bump the temp up just a few degrees, to the 38-40° range (like many of us homebrewers prefer), then you need to double the line length to slow things enough to get a decent pour, even with lower carb levels like 2.4-2.5 vol. This is why you see so many suggestions on this site to use 10' lines.

No, if the temp is high, that doesn't in itself cause foaming like the OP seems to think. Now if you jack up the pressure too (cet. par.), then indeed you'll get foaming, but that's not because of the higher temperature; it's because your line lengths aren't balanced with the higher pressure. The OP said he's keeping 10 psi, so beer at 40+F shouldn't in itself cause foaming unless maybe the beer was carb'd at a lower temp.

 

[JuanMoore]

No, if the temp is high, that doesn't in itself cause foaming like the OP seems to think. Now if you jack up the pressure too (cet. par.), then indeed you'll get foaming, but that's not because of the higher temperature; it's because your line lengths aren't balanced with the higher pressure. The OP said he's keeping 10 psi, so beer at 40+F shouldn't in itself cause foaming unless maybe the beer was carb'd at a lower temp.

You have to balance more than just the pressure, you also need to consider the beer temp and carbonation level. For a beer carbed to 2.7 vol (like most BMC beer), and stored at 36° or lower (like commercial systems are set up), a flow rate of ~128 oz/min works just fine. This is the figure that most line balancing calculators use, because they were all developed for balancing commercial systems. As an example, the pressure would be 12 psi for a beer at 36° and 2.7 vol, and the line length for a flow rate of 128 oz/min would be 3-4'. As long as the system is set up properly and well maintained, this should provide good pours. Just to be on the safe side, most kegerator manufacturers include 5' of line.

Now consider a similar set-up, also kept on 12psi, but with a beer temp of 40° this time. The carbonation will be 2.43 vol instead of 2.7, and using that same 3-4' line length will result in the same 128 oz/min flow rate. This time however it will foam like crazy, as evident by reading through the plethora of "Help, my beer is all foam" threads in this forum. To get a good pour at warmer temps, the flow rate needs to be slower to keep the carbonation in solution, which requires longer lines. Just because an increased temp means reduced carbonation, that doesn't necessarily mean that the same flow rate will still be acceptable at the increased temp.

If the OP's beer is close to 40°, then the carbonation should be around 2.3 vol, and the 10' lines should reduce the flow rate enough to get a good pour. If on the other hand the temp is actually 50°, that 10 psi will correspond to 1.9 vol of carbonation, and 10' lines might very well be too short to slow the flow down enough to get a decent pour.

 

[bren2426]

Ill be kegging another beer in about a week. So I'll let you know on the outcome. Thanks for all the assistance.

 

[bren2426]

Ok I think I figured it out. I had to much carb. My gauge must not read correct. I took off co2 and released some pressure and let it sit for a cpl weeks and the pour is awesome. Here is a pc of the first pour. Thanks for all the help.

 

[bren2426]

Ok I came to some other conclusions too I cleaned and sanitized keg today and found out that most of my orings were bad. So I could have been leaking co2 this while time which would probably cause it to over carb. I am kegging my cherry fever stout today on the newly conditioned kegs. So I will let everyone know in about a week. I am starting my all grain red ale today.

 

[Stauffbier]

O rings that leak out gas would likely cause your beer to be under carbed not over carbed. Not to mention you probably would have run out of co2 really fast if you had a leak. It is good practice to replace them if they look bad, though.