Too Much Foam!

[noreaster40s]

I made a 5 gallon batch of Extra Pale Ale from Northern Brewer not long ago. Everything went according to plan from what I could tell. When it was ready in the secondary I kegged it, put it in my single tap kegerator. To carbonate it I usually take the CO2 line off the keg that's already been tapped and put it on the new keg at 30 psi and leave it for about 48 hours. I've done this in the past and it usually works fine for me. Usually .....

I don't know what happened but this time, when I checked it after 48 hours, I found everything frozen! The thermometer in the kegerator was reading in the teens for some reason. All I did was put the new keg in and move the CO2 over to it. No other settings were touched.

Anyway, I got things thawed out and have tapped the EPA to see what damage, if any, was done. The beer tastes fine but there's waaaay too much foam when I draw off a pint. I put the CO2 pressure down to about 3 psi now but it still foams like crazy. So I pour a pint (sorta) suck some of the foam off and let it sit until it settles down. Do this a few times and I get my pint glass about where I want it. Any ideas? thanks.

 

[android]

keep purging the keg without any gas on it for a few days and see if it improves... did you get the temps back to normal? the colder liquid gets, the more co2 can dissolve in it (i think), so that probably contributed to it.

 

[noreaster40s]

Yes, the beer has been back to my normal temp for not quite a week now.

 

[SavageSteve]

Did your kegerator run constantly after you put the new keg in? If so, then perhaps the unit worked too hard to bring the temperature down after putting in the warm keg... otherwise, I got nothin'.

And yes, colder liquids can hold more CO2, so that explains the over carbonation. You should be able to bleed off CO2 to bring the level back to normal. It will probably take a while.

-Steve

 

[beesy]

you could give you keg a little rocking back and forth to help release the co2. i think i read on a post about a year ago that someone bleed the keg, opened the lid and gently stirred with a sanitized racking cane to help relese the co2. maybe worth a search to see what the results were (i can't remember)