Over Carbonated Keg

[Pwschlon]

I'm currently stumped and can't seem to fix this problem.

I recently kegged a belgian dubbel. I kept the pressure at 12 psi and got perfect pours for about 2 to 3 weeks. Then overnight, nothing but foam out of the line. I thought, ok, no big deal. I'll just unhook the gas and keep bleeding CO2 out of the tank. After a week, still just all foam. The friendly people at my local homebrew store suggested bringing the keg to room temp and then lower the pressure to 5 or 6 for pushing. I did this for 10 days, bleeding the tank a few times a day. After I hooked it back up still all foam.

So now I have the keg back in the kegerator. Have not had it attached to any CO2 for over 2 weeks. When I pull the bleed ring on the keg, no gas comes out. I hooked it up tonight and only pure foam comes out.


I even opened the keg and poured some into a glass. It tasted fine but was actually flat. I'm baffled. It's a great beer and I'm very frustrated I can't enjoy it.

My setup:

Converted chest freezer.
5 gallon kegs.
A dual pressure regulator.
Tap lines are 5 feet long.
Also, I currently have a honey weiss hooked up to the same system and it pours fine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

 

[55x11]

I'm currently stumped and can't seem to fix this problem.

I recently kegged a belgian dubbel. I kept the pressure at 12 psi and got perfect pours for about 2 to 3 weeks. Then overnight, nothing but foam out of the line. I thought, ok, no big deal. I'll just unhook the gas and keep bleeding CO2 out of the tank. After a week, still just all foam. The friendly people at my local homebrew store suggested bringing the keg to room temp and then lower the pressure to 5 or 6 for pushing. I did this for 10 days, bleeding the tank a few times a day. After I hooked it back up still all foam.

So now I have the keg back in the kegerator. Have not had it attached to any CO2 for over 2 weeks. When I pull the bleed ring on the keg, no gas comes out. I hooked it up tonight and only pure foam comes out.


I even opened the keg and poured some into a glass. It tasted fine but was actually flat. I'm baffled. It's a great beer and I'm very frustrated I can't enjoy it.

My setup:

Converted chest freezer.
5 gallon kegs.
A dual pressure regulator.
Tap lines are 5 feet long.
Also, I currently have a honey weiss hooked up to the same system and it pours fine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

this is weird.
Lets assume you have opened the keg to air pressure so it's not pressurized and beer is "basically" flat.
But the beer line still produces only foam?
My only suggestion is to investigate beer line a little better. If the beer is say 1 volume carbonated and there is an constriction in the beer line that knocks out most of CO2 out of solution for some strange reason (warm temperature or small aperture are my guesses), you will end up with foam, lots of it (if you knock out all of CO2 at 1 volume, that's 1:1 foam to beer right there).

anyways, I would swap serving lines and maybe swap the dip tube if I were you (in case it is clogged but not completely it can provide the same effect of knocking CO2 out of solution)

 

[laredo7mm]

Can you put the honey weiss line and tap on the problematic keg? Or maybe hook up a quick picnic tap and line to see if it pours without foam from a known good line and tap?

Sounds like there may be an obstruction or something else odd in the current line/tap.


On edit; looks like 55x11 beat me to it. Good point about the dip tube also.

 

[raouliii]

I recommend checking the o-ring that should be between the diptube and threaded fitting (under the post) on the keg. If it is leaking CO2 from the headspace into the outgoing beer you can certainly get foam from flat beer.

 

[spittybug]

Had exact same issue. Raouliii is correct. CO2 is mixing with outgoing beer.

 

[PapaO]

It could be a hole in the diptube, works fine untill beer level goes below the hole letting Co2 in from the headspace.

PapaO

 

[Pwschlon]

Just posting again to thank you guys. You were right. I pulled the metal tube out of the keg and, sure enough, there are 2 holes in it. Makes perfect sense that it poured fine until the beer in the keg went below where the holes are.

Again, thanks.

Paul

 

[pat10323]

That's crazy how would the holes get there

 

[raouliii]

That's crazy how would the holes get there

Corrosion maybe?

 

[Pwschlon]

Brand new kegs. They were dash shaped, uniform holes, obviously punched into the tube. How? Who knows. The guys at the brew store looked at it, scratched their heads and said, "Boy, that's weird" and then gave me a new dip tube. So all is well.