Beer exploding out of my keg!

[Jtotz89]

I keg all of my home brews and for carbonate them in my kegorater. Well me and some friends always do a huge camping trip every year with our jeeps (my other hobby) and this year we decided to bring along a couple of our kegs to enjoy around the campfire. The place we go is pretty remote, so the road to get there is pretty long and very bumpy. When we go all set up at camp and went to pour a beer, you could see solid beer in the line, but as soon as it left the tap it was pure foam. I figured it was from being shaken around so much from the road, so we let it sit for the night a drank some other beer we brought. I should also mention the we have a solar powered chest freezer set up that kept the beer at a constant temp of about 34-36 degrees, except for the 2 hour ride up when the the fridge wasn't on. Anyways, we were there for a total of 5 days, and no matter what we did, or how long we let it rest, we couldnt get it to stop foaming. Once again there was solid beer in the line, but it would leave you with a glass of foam. Has anyone else ever had a similar problem and/or know how to fix it next time? Thanks

 

[Revvy]

You probably bounced the hell out of everything. How long ago did you drive up, today? You may have to just let everything settle for a day or so.
Also, obvious stuff. how long are the beverage lines?

 

[Pratzie]

How long are ur beer lines? Im guessing u used a picnic tap with only a few feet of line?

 

[Revvy]

How long are ur beer lines? Im guessing u used a picnic tap with only a few feet of line?

that's what I was thinking. Add that to shaking the heck out of everything transporting I could see it foaming.

 

[Jtotz89]

We drove up there on a Monday mid day, and Thursday night, it was still very foamy.

We started with what I believe was about 6 feet of line on top of a 50ft jockey box just to double up so the beer would be icy cold. We removed the jockey box and just had the line hooked up to the shank and had that resting in the chest freezer. Then we tried different combinations of beverage line length all the way down to about 6 inches. We also did every combination of pressure from about 3 PSI, all the way up two 20 PSI. I was trying things I knew wouldn't work because I became so frustrated. WE wasted over half of BOTH kegs just trying to get it to pour correctly before we settled on foam and left it to settle out.

 

[Pratzie]

I'd imagine after 2-3 days of rest it would have been acceptable with 10 feet of beverage line.

The variation in PSI over that few days (at least in my opinion) prob wouldn't have been enought to get rid of any excessive CO2 that was there if it was overcarbed prior to agitation, so changing it from 3-20 prob didn't do much.

The only other thing I can think of... whats the ID of ur beverage line tubing? If it was 3/8" then u prob just needed to have 10+ feet of tubing. Otherwise im stumped.

 

[Jtotz89]

It was 3/8 tubing, but only 6 feet of it.

 

[Revvy]

Bigger is always better, where hose is concerned.

 

[forstmeister]

Did you purge the keg of gas before trying to serve? I think if you did that and let it sit for a day at serving temp it should have been fine.