Another foamy keg thread

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Bryceefisher

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I have a Saison in a ball lock corny keg with about 2.5 vols of carb. I cannot seem to get a good pour from my tap. The beer and lines are around 40f and I have about 10 feet of 3/16 beverage tubing. I've tried dispensing between 0 and 20psi with only foam and a little bit of flat beer. I have tried balancing the lines going as short as 3 3/4', I have three taps and they all do the same thing. The only way I get drinkable beer is from a picnic tap at about 2 psi. I have tried almost every common fix I can find online, the keg is assembled properly and everything is clean and cold. PLEASE HELP I'm tired of wasting good home brew :drunk:.

-Bryce
 
I have a Saison in a ball lock corny keg with about 2.5 vols of carb. I cannot seem to get a good pour from my tap. The beer and lines are around 40f and I have about 10 feet of 3/16 beverage tubing. I've tried dispensing between 0 and 20psi with only foam and a little bit of flat beer. I have tried balancing the lines going as short as 3 3/4', I have three taps and they all do the same thing. The only way I get drinkable beer is from a picnic tap at about 2 psi. I have tried almost every common fix I can find online, the keg is assembled properly and everything is clean and cold. PLEASE HELP I'm tired of wasting good home brew :drunk:.



-Bryce


I'll try to help.

So what kind of kegerator are you using? What about the shanks? Where is the kegerator located and ambient temp?

The kegerator temp is 40°, you should consult a table in a book or online to arrive at the appropriate PSI to set your regulator at for the desired volumes of CO2 you want.

There are ways to calculate the loss of the PSI through the tubing and to the faucet. 3/16" tubing will require the shortest length to achieve this pressure drop. You can probably find this searching google. Some folks say that the center of the keg to the height of tap must also be taken into consideration, and that the faucet can restrict up to 1 psi, but has been my experience, that faucets do not restrict this much, and unless your keg is on a different floor that the taps, the heigh issue is usually negligible.

This leaves the tubing length. You need more tubing it seems. I'd start by doing the calculations for how May psi are dropped per foot of tubing, and then apply a fudge factor, because I've never found those calculations to be precisely accurate, and add several feet to that number. Install with temporary fittings, pour, and test, then trim the tubing down until you achieve the desired pour and foam then use the permanent clamps or whatever.

Some kegerators (keezers) have air flow issues, and the shanks and lines can get warm, causing the first pour foam phenomenon. Use longer shanks if you can as well. Those are sort of like heat sinks. Knowing more about your specific situation I could give more guidance.

I'm assuming that you didn't just haul that keg home and slap it in the fridge. Commercial beer especially if often not kept at proper serving temps, and by the time you get it home it's much warmer. It'll take time to get that keg and the beer inside down to temp.

Good luck


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
I'll try to help.

So what kind of kegerator are you using? What about the shanks? Where is the kegerator located and ambient temp?

The kegerator temp is 40°, you should consult a table in a book or online to arrive at the appropriate PSI to set your regulator at for the desired volumes of CO2 you want.

There are ways to calculate the loss of the PSI through the tubing and to the faucet. 3/16" tubing will require the shortest length to achieve this pressure drop. You can probably find this searching google. Some folks say that the center of the keg to the height of tap must also be taken into consideration, and that the faucet can restrict up to 1 psi, but has been my experience, that faucets do not restrict this much, and unless your keg is on a different floor that the taps, the heigh issue is usually negligible.

This leaves the tubing length. You need more tubing it seems. I'd start by doing the calculations for how May psi are dropped per foot of tubing, and then apply a fudge factor, because I've never found those calculations to be precisely accurate, and add several feet to that number. Install with temporary fittings, pour, and test, then trim the tubing down until you achieve the desired pour and foam then use the permanent clamps or whatever.

Some kegerators (keezers) have air flow issues, and the shanks and lines can get warm, causing the first pour foam phenomenon. Use longer shanks if you can as well. Those are sort of like heat sinks. Knowing more about your specific situation I could give more guidance.

I'm assuming that you didn't just haul that keg home and slap it in the fridge. Commercial beer especially if often not kept at proper serving temps, and by the time you get it home it's much warmer. It'll take time to get that keg and the beer inside down to temp.

Good luck


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

I'm not positive on the exact type of shank but I'm sure it's pretty standard comes about 6 inches through the wall of a regular refrigerator. The middle of the keg to the shank is about 2 feet.

I had tried balancing the lines and that got me closer to 5 feet of line assuming I was losing 2-3 psi per foot and 1 or 2psi through the tap and due to elevation I should have had 1 psi at the tap with not a lot of foam... Not the case.

As per my lhbs I tried about 14 feet then cut it down to 10 which is the sweet spot (or so I have read) the pour is definitely better but I am dispensing at about 8 psi so theoretically I should not be able to have anything coming out of the tap and the glass is still half full of foam.
The ambient temp of the tap outside of the keg is probably 75-80 (but the second or third pour are no better leading me to believe this is not the issue).

Thank you by the way for any help you can offer.
 
NP

I think you should get a nice 20' section of bev tubing 3/16" and try pouring until you find the real sweet spot trimming back a foot at a time until you're dialed in. Once you got the right length, coil up the tubing leaving enough slack to open the lid/door with it connected to the keg and then tie it up so you don't have a tangled mess. Mark the length of that coil and what volumes CO2 it was for. I did this before and worked well. I had a wheat beer and a Belgian beer coil that I would rinse and save until I needed when brewing different things


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