First time kegger headaches!!!! HELP PLEASE!!!

[Krusty]

Hi guys, I've been lurking on this forum for quite a while and I don't post much but read a lot.
I have been HBing for years, but have only just got around to building a keg set up. It has 2 kegs, with a gas line splitter inside the fridge. Each keg has it's own out line going to a through the door style, pull forward type tap.
My problem is that I cannot pour a beer that isn't all foam. I am getting about 10mm of beer and the rest foam off both kegs.
My pouring pressure has been adjusted from less than 40kpa to over 150kpa and the speed changes but the foam stays the same. At pressures less than 70kpa, gas pockets form in the beer line.
I am using 5mm beer line (8mm OD, 5mm ID) My set up came with 1.8m of line attached to each tap and I tried tuning the system by cutting one of them shorter (1.5m) after reading articles on balancing the system, however that made the beer flow faster and all foam (I have since cut that off and replaced it with 5m of line trying to slow the beer down so it didn't knock the co2 out of solution, thinking I could cut it down if it poured ok but slow, but it doesn't, it just pours more foam!). The other one is still 1.8m long and they both spew foam. It is doing my head in and I have a couple of mates coming around tomorrow night and I'll be devastated if I've spent all this money on a foam making beer wating nightmare!!!!
So, has anyone else got a bar fridge with 2 kegs in it with thru the door taps mounted about 1.5ft above the centre of the keg and if so, what is your beer line length and pouring pressure, how do you carbonate etc.
Thanks in advance
-krusty

[OldBugman]

Sounds like you have over carbonated the beer.


explain how you went about carbonating it.

[Krusty]

http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/krusty ... pg&.src=ph
http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/krusty ... pg&.src=ph
These should take you to a couple of pics... Hope this works...

[rwh]

Sounds like you have over carbonated the beer.

Agreed. And if you have overcarbed, it's a bit of a bitch to fix but not too hard. You have to turn down the pouring pressure, try about 50kpa. Then disconnect the kegs from the gas and release all the pressure through the relief valve. Then you can shake it up a bit, wait until the foam has dropped so you're not blowing foam out the relief valve (say 15 mins), then release the pressure again. Do this as many times as you need to get enough gas out of the beer.

This is similar to trying to flatten coke or whatever by shaking up the coke and letting the pressure out the lid, then shaking it up again etc., just on a bigger scale.

So do it several times, reconnect it all up, and pour, see if it's working. If it's still foam, keep doing it. You'll eventually get to a point where it pours fine. Generally speaking, when carbing beer in a keg it's best to err on the side of under-carbonation because it's much easier (faster) to force gas into beer than it is to get it out again.

[lethaldog]

Yep sounds over carbed, i have two kegs running and both have about 2 metres of beer line attached to the taps, no probs with pouring here, try letting the preasure out of the kegs ( all of it) and resetting your pouring preasure to about 10 psi ( 70 kpa) and try to make sure your glasses are cold

[OldBugman]

a way i use to try deal with over carbd beer is to disconnect the gas from the kegs purge the pressure slightly and just pour the beer really slowly with the pressure inside the keg, by the time you come back to get another the co2 has escaped slightly from the beer so you'll have some more pressure to maintain a trickle at the font.


only downside besides drinking fizzy beer is you have to stand at the taps longer.

[Hashie]

I do the same as oldbugman. Just let the keg pour itself, so to speak, until you find it needs gas to pour. Then I set the gas at ~8 psi.

Doing it this way, I've always been able to turn an over carbed keg into a normally carbed keg in a couple of days.

[lethaldog]

Another thing i have found with carbing up in the first place is, I rack my beer from lagering/ccing into the keg so they are already cold, then put in the keg fridge and turn the gas on low, burp and then turn the preasure up to 50psi/350kpa and leave for 24 hours, then turn the gas off and release the preasure down to just under pouring preasure and turn the gas back on to reach pouring preasure, ive only carbed up 4 kegs so far but all have been perfect so this is the system ill stick to

[Krusty]

Thanks for the replies, fellas.
Sounds like I'm going to have to try to flatten the kegs. Bugger!
My original force carbing procedure was to turn the gas up to 300kpa, tip the keg on its head so the gas inlet was at the bottom and shake it for 50 secs then stand it right way up and turn off the cylinder supply valve and watch the reg drop, an dif it stopped around 160 kpa it'd be right (this is apparently known as the "Ross" method and I got it from the AHB forum.
Anyway, after doing that, I was getting glasses out of the keg that looked alright, but while they had a head, the beer itself was flat, so I left the gas on overnight at 170kpa to get some more gas into the beer, but it sounds as if I must have got too much into it.
OK I'm going to try and flatten it and we'll see how that goes.
Have to go nock the top off a bottle since I'm pouring far too much down the sink from the keg.
Oh well...

[rwh]

Ah ha! One of the gotchas for new keggers: overcarbonation can result in flat beer! w00t!

[OldBugman]

one of the guys at work who I convinced kegging is the way to go ran into me the other day and said he loved it but couldnt pour properly, when I asked him how he carb'd it up he told me about the pressure and time then also said he put some dextrose in the keg.

[lethaldog]

[SpillsMostOfIt]

If you want to save on CO2 and don't mind waiting, isn't adding some fermentables to the keg a reasonable way to do it?

[OldBugman]

yes, but you dont do both like the guy at work


if you naturally carbonate the beer you'll end up with more yeast on the bottom of the keg aswell.

[Ross]

Don't stress, it'll all seem very simple after you've done a couple. For this one leave the relief valve open over night, try a pour in the morning, if still bad open up the valve & leave till the evening. Repeat until pouring fine - shaking the keg will certainly speed things up though.

+++

The 160kpa your shaking settled at was right up the higher limit for a lager, that's why it poured a little foamy & seemed a little flat. Leaving it on gas over night just compounded the problem - It's certainly confusing for the new kegger.

cheers Ross

[yardglass]

Another thing i have found with carbing up in the first place is, I rack my beer from lagering/ccing into the keg so they are already cold, then put in the keg fridge and turn the gas on low, burp and then turn the preasure up to 50psi/350kpa and leave for 24 hours, then turn the gas off and release the preasure down to just under pouring preasure and turn the gas back on to reach pouring preasure, ive only carbed up 4 kegs so far but all have been perfect so this is the system ill stick to

Hey Lethal,

What temp would you say you're kegs are at when you carb ?

Cheers

Yard

[lethaldog]

About 2-3*C or there abouts, they come straight out of the lagering/brew fridge where they sit between 1-2*C and i rack straight away into the keg and then straight into my keg fridge which is set about the same temp, they probably gain a degree or two in the process but havent noticed yet

[yardglass]

About 2-3*C or there abouts, they come straight out of the lagering/brew fridge where they sit between 1-2*C and i rack straight away into the keg and then straight into my keg fridge which is set about the same temp, they probably gain a degree or two in the process but havent noticed yet

My first few I force carbed were perfect but they were in the fridge and probably at about 8*C, the next few had been in the chesty @ about the same temp as yours and I overcarbed them, I'm thinking because of the cooler temp allowed the beer to absorb more C02, will either try your method or cut back on the amount of 'rocking the keg' time.

cheers
Yard

[lethaldog]

I dont rock the kegs at all just whack in the fridge and hook up the gas, leave for 24 hours and voila I know there is alot of methods but this one has worked for me so far

[SpillsMostOfIt]

How can you argue with

1. Whack
2. Hookup
3. Wait
4. Voila!