Help me save the beer!!!!

[Raoul]

Sorry in advance for the long post, but I want to give as complete of a description as possible, as I obviously don't know what may be important to solve my problem.

I recently inherited the components for a kegerator and happened to have an old refridgerator in the garage. After a few tweaks to the thermostat, I am prepared for my first Keg. The kegerator components I inherited are 20+ years old, but were all in good condition.

My system specs: Temperature ~36F. Elevation 5000ft. Beer line is 5 ft long and 3/16 inch diameter. Faucet is about the same height as the top of the keg.

Got my first keg of some gooooood beer (snake river pale ale). Things basically went ok. Beer was well carbonated and fresh. The only problem I had was a little air bubble would form near the faucet end (and not at the keg tap). I figured it was air leaking in and not CO2 coming out of the beer. The end result was the 1st beer every time was foamy, and then it would pour nicely. 30 minutes later, the first beer would be foamy again, etc. Finished the keg, and assumed I just needed a new seal. I tracked down new seals for the beer line ends, the coupler, and the two for the keg tap while I was at it.

Decided at that point that everything could use a really good cleaning (20+ years of beer buildup), so I stripped it down completely and removed all the seals/teflon ball (including the tap). Put it in the ultrasound in acetone...and scrubed it down with a SOS....cleaned it all up and then put it in some chlorinated water and then some boiling water to make sure it was all sterile again. Put it back together, and am pretty confident I got it all back together correctly (no left over parts). Oh yea, I put a tiny smear of olive oil on the o-rings, as it just didn't feel right to put them back dry.

Ok...time for another keg. Picked up a keg of bud light last night to see if I helped the problem. About a 5 minute drive home and then I let it sit in the fridge for ~1hour before trying any of it. Low and behold, it is super foamy now, every beer that comes out of it. What is worse, after the foam dies down (or you pour it off to get to the real beer below) the beer is flat! You can count the bubbles coming up to the surface, whereas the original keg had streaming bubbles.

We drank off of it for a couple of hours, where I screwed with the pressure and stuff, but it aways stayed the same. I checked the lines, and they had no restrictions or kinks. The beer seemed to be pouring fast, so I turned it down to about 10-11 psi before calling it a night. After a restless night of trying to figure out how I can have foamy beer and flat beer at the same time, I looked at the lines this morning and found air bubbles in the beer line at the faucet end still as well as above the tap. Maybe the pressure is too low now....increased to 14 psi.

Not sure what to do next. I am thinking about adding some more beer line, as it seems to pour very quickly and thought that might be aerating it too much and causing the fom. Did I screw something up by taking it all apart? I would think the odds of getting a flat keg from Bud is pretty low (born on June 30).

I would appreciate any advice I can get on helping me to save the beer and get it pouring correctly!!!!!

[Scott Zuhse]

First comment would be that you could have used the the parts in surgery!!! Great job cleaning! No telling what the temperature of the beer could be from the liquor store. Takes awhile for the beer to aclimate. Possibly overnight. Bud light has 2.5 volumes of CO2 in it and to keep this intact as you dispense at your elevation at 36F you will require 15 PSIG. At this pressure try about 7' of 3/16 and if this is too slow cut back in 4" increments until desired flow rate is obtained. Do not clamp at coupler until you reach your flow rate. As to the initial keg and the slight amount of foam at the faucet - two issues which will cause this. PSIG slightly low or a heat source at the shank and faucet. If you can not solve this, do not pour the clear beer on top of the foam. This will cause more foam. Do you have a double gauge regulator? If so, you can use this to leak test. Let us know.

Scott Zuhse, Instructor Micro Matic Dispense Institute

[Raoul]

I don't think I have any leak, as I have shut down the CO2 tank, and seen that the pressure (low side) remains the same (at least for a day). I figure any leak, and that would drop. I don't have a double-side gauge. I assumed it wasn't that useful, as the majority of the CO2 should be liquid form, adn the high pressure gauge would therefore always read a constant value, until you start getting low. I was planning on just weighing the tank to know when I am getting low. However, maybe I need to rethink this and upgrade to a 2 gauge regulator.

I figure with my keg of Budlight, that perhaps it is just a bad keg. I couldn't come up with any real reason which I could be doing wrong that would make a brand new keg go flat. The only possibility that I could come up with is if the grocery store put it in their freezer and froze it partially. I can't buy from the distributer here, the grocery stores have to get it for me (and mark up the $$). However, after a full 24 hours later, the beer was not only flat, but now it tasted worse than before. Therefore, I am exchanging the rest of this keg tonight for a new one. That should tell me immediately if the problem is on my end, or just a bad keg.

I have no idea how you work out the correct pressure for my temperature & elevation, but thanks for the info! I assume I should remain around 15psi, even when I switch back to some good micros? Maybe a slight tweak, but 15psi is about where I need to be? The distributer gave me 12 feet of new beer line, so I can start experimenting with the length. Is is possible to join 2 lengths of beer line, or will the connector cause more aeration / foam problems? I was wondering him about building a manifold of sorts, where you could turn a valve and add a foot of beer line and more valves for more, until you dialed in the correct length. Just wondering that if the next beer wants a lower psi, then I might have to remove a foot of line to compensate? Maybe this is all moot, and I should stop worrying about it all, and just drink a beer....or two.

The good news is that I don't see any air bubbles in the beer line today, so hopefully that problem is solved. As far as a heat source goes at the shank/faucet, this must exist for my setup, but I figure it must be the same for every setup. I drilled a hole in the side of my fridge, and put the shank through there. Therefore, one half of the shank is cold (presumably not as cold as the fridge) since it is inside, and the faucet is outside along with the other side of the shank. Therefore, the whole assembly is probably close to the average of the outside temperature and the inside temperature (most likely warmer since there is more mass outside due to the faucet). Not sure what can be done about this as I want to be able to draw beer without opening the fridge. I did think of building a small insulating box around the faucet?

Thanks again for all of your help! This site rocks. I have learned a lot by reading all of the other posts!!!

-Raoul

[Brad5980]

Raoul -

Sounds exactly like my current problem I have posted in the Troubleshooting forum under "foam". What finally resulted in no bubbles in the line? Was it your beer line legnth? How long was the final length?

quote:Originally posted by Raoul

I don't think I have any leak, as I have shut down the CO2 tank, and seen that the pressure (low side) remains the same (at least for a day). I figure any leak, and that would drop. I don't have a double-side gauge. I assumed it wasn't that useful, as the majority of the CO2 should be liquid form, adn the high pressure gauge would therefore always read a constant value, until you start getting low. I was planning on just weighing the tank to know when I am getting low. However, maybe I need to rethink this and upgrade to a 2 gauge regulator.

I figure with my keg of Budlight, that perhaps it is just a bad keg. I couldn't come up with any real reason which I could be doing wrong that would make a brand new keg go flat. The only possibility that I could come up with is if the grocery store put it in their freezer and froze it partially. I can't buy from the distributer here, the grocery stores have to get it for me (and mark up the $$). However, after a full 24 hours later, the beer was not only flat, but now it tasted worse than before. Therefore, I am exchanging the rest of this keg tonight for a new one. That should tell me immediately if the problem is on my end, or just a bad keg.

I have no idea how you work out the correct pressure for my temperature & elevation, but thanks for the info! I assume I should remain around 15psi, even when I switch back to some good micros? Maybe a slight tweak, but 15psi is about where I need to be? The distributer gave me 12 feet of new beer line, so I can start experimenting with the length. Is is possible to join 2 lengths of beer line, or will the connector cause more aeration / foam problems? I was wondering him about building a manifold of sorts, where you could turn a valve and add a foot of beer line and more valves for more, until you dialed in the correct length. Just wondering that if the next beer wants a lower psi, then I might have to remove a foot of line to compensate? Maybe this is all moot, and I should stop worrying about it all, and just drink a beer....or two.

The good news is that I don't see any air bubbles in the beer line today, so hopefully that problem is solved. As far as a heat source goes at the shank/faucet, this must exist for my setup, but I figure it must be the same for every setup. I drilled a hole in the side of my fridge, and put the shank through there. Therefore, one half of the shank is cold (presumably not as cold as the fridge) since it is inside, and the faucet is outside along with the other side of the shank. Therefore, the whole assembly is probably close to the average of the outside temperature and the inside temperature (most likely warmer since there is more mass outside due to the faucet). Not sure what can be done about this as I want to be able to draw beer without opening the fridge. I did think of building a small insulating box around the faucet?

Thanks again for all of your help! This site rocks. I have learned a lot by reading all of the other posts!!!

-Raoul

[Raoul]

Brad5980,

Well, it has only been one day so far, but no air bubbles yet (air bubbles used to appear within 30 minutes). I am fairly certain that the air bubbles were coming from a bad seal at the faucet. I made sure that the beer line made an air trap above the keg, and confirmed that no bubble appeared there (hence not CO2 coming from the beer). The only bubble appeared at the faucet/shank connection. I simply replaced the seals. I replaced the 2 on the beer line connectors, the one in the faucet collar, and just for good measure, the two on the bottom of the tap.

[Raoul]

Ok...new keg of bud light seems to be much better. Not overly carbonated, but it isn't flat either. Hopefully the beer maintains, as the last one started to taste skunky by day 2. There is still a chance that I screwed something up, but it is looking like I just got a bad keg.

It still pours a big head, but it isn't the same as the foam I was getting before. The foam would take quite a while to disappate, whereas the large head I get now (glass 1/2 beer, 1/2 head) drops quickly. I have not yet extended the beer line, but will do that tonight, as I think the large head could be from pouring too quickly.

No bubbles in the beer line again today, so I think I might have solved that problem. Still curious about what one can do to stop the faucet outside the fridge being a heat source. That seems inevitable to me, so the first beer will always be a bit foamy as it has to cool down the faucet?

Ok...my stupid question for the day: What is the downside of having too long of a beer line? If I am a patient man and I don't need a 10 oz beer poured in 4 seconds, is there any other downside besides it takes 15 seconds to fill my glass?

-Raoul

[Scott Zuhse]

No downside to to much line. Beer will simply flow slowly. Be certain with your temperature - 36F @ 15 PSIG. Bud light has the same carbonation as 80% of beer so theis pressure should work fine.

During the pour, the initial shot of foam should be dumped out and then dispense a beer. It is impossible to pour clear beer on top of foam. Try this. And keep the glass away from the faucet so you can see the flow.

Scott Zuhse, Instructor Micro Matic Dispense Institute

[Raoul]

Update on my system.

Your 15psi seems to be on the money for my setup. I set it at 14psi to see what happens, and small bubbles started appearing in the bear lines again (CO2 breaking out). I adjusted it to 16psi, and they disappeared completely, but after a couple of days, it appeared as the beer was increasing its carbonation (lots more bubbles rising in the glass in comparison to when I first tapped it). So I have it locked down at 15psi. I am surprised that the window is so small? Perhaps my regulator gauge is off?

I increased the beer line to 8.5 feet. That helped a great deal. It slows the pour down to a nice controllable rate. Even if I do get a little squirt of foam due to the faucet being slightly warmer, since the beer is coming out slowly, I don't end up with an entire glass of foam. I get a nice drinkable beer. If anything, I would add another foot of line, as I am in no rush to fill my glass. It is still filling twice as fast as any handpump keg party I have been to!

[Scott Zuhse]

Enjoy!

Scott Zuhse, Instructor Micro Matic Dispense Institute