Wineglow-
I think you are drawing the beer back to the faucet through the FOB in the 'clean' setting, which as you know allows liquid to flow freely with out tripping the FOB. The problem is FOB's in the clean mode seem to cause the beer to foam, for some reason it agitates it, as the beer swirls through the FOB and out into the line. I'm not saying that every FOB everywhere does it, but it happens. I have seen several accounts that have a FOB on one or two lines, (god only knows why) and the other lines do not, and after a cleaning the beer with FOB's on them will pour nothing but foam until you reset it and put it into pour mode and draw past that point.
I think it has something to do with the air bubble at the very top of the FOB when it is in clean mode the float drops a little.
So I think your pulling foam from the FOB through 120 feet of line, and then reseting the FOB, but the foamy beer is already in the line. So probably what's happening is the glycol system is doing it's job; as you know, as beer cools foam is suppressed, but there is too much (120ft) and not enough time for the system to cool all the foam back to liquid before they start pouring. So they are able to draw a few pints here and there but there is still foam in the lines. That would also point to what you said about everthing being fine the next day, and before you clean too. In other words, once they work their way past the point in the beer where the FOB was reset they have no problems.
So, you can reset the FOB, and then pull all the foam out of the lines until you get to the 'reset' point and the beer is clear. -They end up doing this themselves anyway, just not all at once like you would.
Or. you can go to the faucet, and pull the beer a few feet past the FOB, go back to the FOB and reset it, then pull the beer back to the faucet. So there should only be a few feet of foam and then it should come clear. It doesn't matter if there is air or what ever in the line ahead of the FOB, just get the beer from the keg past the FOB and on it's way out the line and reset it.
Try it and see what happens.
FOB's are the biggest waste of time, money, and product, of anything in the beer world that I have come across, in my humble opinion. Designed to turn off the flow of beer when the keg empties and not 'blow' at the faucet. I guess someone saw this as a problem. Same thing happens with a direct draw-
I have yet to see one installed for the sole reason it was designed.
It seems they are too often installed to pad the bill, or to cure a different problem, a problem a properly balanced system wouldn't have. Not only that but they are also difficult to keep clean properly, and many times bar staff have no idea how they work or what to do with it if they have to change a keg.
They are just a general pain in the butt, with no benefit in my opinion.
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