So I kegged my first batch and set it at the recommended 27psi for a couple days, but then forgot about it for a couple days. So now I get about an inch of beer and the rest head when I pour out of the tap…
Question is, how do I get the beer to level out before the big game? I have been releasing pressure every morning and leaving it depressurized, but it hasn’t fixed itself yet.
Thought about shaking the keg, what do you think of that?
hmmm…if you bleed out all the co2 pressure and are still getting foam, it could be a line problem. get 5’ of liquid tubing from the hardware store and replace. when you crank the co2 back up, just put it at a dispensing pressure like 5psi.
shaking won’t reduce foam. i think shaking is just for saturating your beer with co2 if you quick carb.
the game’s a few days away so you should be able to get it fixed, but if not, get the pitcher out (less trips to the fridge, anyway).
Lines are a week old. As I said it is my first keg. I doubt it is a line problem on brand new lines.
not the age, the length.
my length is already about 5 ft.
How long are your lines and at what temp?
Edit: 5’ is a bit short but what temp?
40 degrees about, until it goes up the shaft. Then your guess is as good as mine. The shaft is minimally insulated. If you’re saying that there is not a problem with the pressure at the keg, then I will live with it. I spent too much money on the setup to be changing it right away. I will have to wait until I can change my single tap tower into a two tap tower.
I had this same problem with my first keg. I was told to bring the keg up to room temp. and then vent the excess pressure. it took 48 hours, but it worked for me. What is your serving pressure? I was told too dispense at no more than 10psi,
6psi is my serving pressure, I will pull the keg out this evening and see what happens. Thanks.
Brans you have a few things that can cause foaming problems:
Overcarbonation. You have this one sorted out already, you can make the keg go flat overnight if you open the PRV and let it get warm. I’ve often found that just pouring a few pints without the gas hooked up fixes a mild overcarbonation within a day or so. Most importantly: does it taste overcarbonated? If not, your foam is caused by something else.
The uninsulated tower. If this is sitting in a house at 70° then the lines going up through the tower will be warm, and warm temps cause CO2 to come out of solution. You’ll need to run about 4-8 oz of beer through the lines before they will cool down and stop the extra foaming. A friend of mine just dumps out the first few oz when he hasn’t poured in a few hours. This can get pretty wasteful.
The better towers are stuffed with foam and some kegerators even blow air from the fridge up the tower to keep it cool. Getting some foam in there is a pretty cheap fix, and if you are handy you can rig up a small computer fan to blow air up the tower.
If you are dead set on 5’ lines, then you can always monkey with the regulator setting while serving and bump it back up at the end of the night. You’d have to purge the keg down to the lower pressure to get it to pour right, so as the keg gets closer to empty you can waste quite a bit of CO2, but this method works.
I pulled the keg out and let it warm up, then I gave it a shake, released the pressure, let it sit about and hour and shook it, let the pressure out, stuck it in the fridge and it was good to go for the game.
