Sudden foam issue from keg, any suggestions?

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TkmLinus

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Greetings everyone! Looking for some advice, last night I tapped a keg and it was pouring fine, then the other keg in my kegerator kicked, so I swapped the co2 and beverage lines from the empty to keg to the new keg. (I have one tap for beer and the other is generally cider). After I swapped the lines I got serious foam. I have a flow control faucet and no matter what I adjusted it to, foam. I swapped the faucet lines again, foam from the faucet that was pouring fine earlier. I let the keg sit overnight, still foaming. I can see air bubbles in the beverage line. My kegerator is at 38F, have 10ft beverage lines, and co2 set at 12psi. I have gone through 10 kegs in this kegerator and this is the first time I have run into foam issues. Any ideas on what to check or to do?

Thanks in advance!
 
sounds like a chunk of something jammed in the diptube at the bottom of the keg.
Creates an obstruction where the beer is forced thru a narrow orifice. Kind of like a sparkler. It knocks the CO2 out of solution as the fluid accelerates through the orifice (Bernoulli's principle), and the pressure drops.
Heres what I'd do:
1. Disconnect both gas and beer lines from the keg
2. Bump pressure on reg to 15 psi
3. Hook up gas to the beer-post to blow the obstruction out hopefully.
4. Pull the poppet to relieve a little pressure on the keg
5. reduce pressure back to 12psi and hook up lines and try serving again...

If this doesn't work you could try putting a piece of wood to tilt the keg a bit so that any debris won't go to the very bottom and risk being sucked into the diptube. Then repeat the blowout procedure again
 
Lay the keg on its side with the liquid post closest to the floor. Does it stop foaming?
It looks like I had somehow over-carbonated the keg, though it poured fine at first. I have let the pressure off and it has been pouring better. I'll keep the tips listed in mind. Thanks!
 
I had a similar problem with my pumpkin ale last season. Particles of trub got struck in the flow control faucet. When I swapped the lines over to a "clean" faucet it similarly clogged. Fortunately I also had a non flow control faucet that I wasn't using so I swapped it out until the keg was done. Flow control is great faucet for clear beer. However, it is more prone to getting clogged due to the small passages in the flow control mechanism. Fortunately it's fairly simple to swap out the faucet so long as you disconnect the QD from the keg liquid line and bleed off the residual pressure in the line first.
 
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