YAFT (Yet Another Foam Thread)

[btroyer]

First, thank you to everyone who has posted their solutions to the foaming problem before, as it gave me somewhere to start. Hopefully someone will be able to help me out, as nothing seems to help... (I know thats been said before ).

My Problem, as you might have guessed: I can only pour full pints of foam. Very, very little comes out as liquid.

However, nothing seems to be working for me. Here's my setup:

- Sanyo 4912M mini-fridge - air temp at 37, fresh poured beer temp 38
- brand new keg, tap, lines (5'), faucet, tower, everything... cleaned prior to use
- pressure set at 16 psi (contacted brewer and they suggested to try 15, if that didn't work try 20)
- Forced air tower ventilation (computer fan attached to a custom cardboard manifold exhausting up the tower)
- elevation ~3500ft
- pony keg (if that matters) of commercial beer

What I've tried so far:

I tried releasing the pressure entirely (shutoff CO2 feed and pulled release valve on tap) and the beer poured at a normal speed and didn't foam (too bad).

I tried pretty much any pressure between 5 and 20 psi.

I tried pouring successive beers to see if it was the tower temperature, and it doesn't seem to matter, it always pours mostly (or all) foam.

I tried looking at the beer line just above the tap to see bubbles, there are none. Actually, there are no bubbles in the beer line at all, that I can see.

My plan is to go looking for more beer line tomorrow at home depot (temporary solution) so that I can try longer lengths before I order some good stuff from Micro Matic. Can anyone suggest something else that could be causing this??

Thanks,

Brady

[edramshaw]

I would not use the stuff from home depot, it is not meant for beer. The stuff from Micromatic will not impart flavors into the beer and is thicker walled which is important with regards to pressure, flexibility, etc. Now to your problem, are you using a calibrated thermometer? It really sounds like it might be a temp issue.

[btroyer]

Thanks for the quick response!

The liquid thermometer was calibrated (at 32), but the dial on it is quite small, so I would put the temperature readings at +/- 1 or 2 degrees. (it's also a meat thermometer, with a range of 20 to 220 degrees...) I'm planning on installing a brewers edge temperature controller, but that's at least 2 weeks away. The air temp is from a cheap digital thermometer I picked up somewhere for less than $10.

I just took a reading and the fresh poured temp looks more like 39 degrees than 37... I just changed the setting down a bit, I'll check later (maybe tomorrow) to see what it is then.

About the tubing, I know the stuff from home depot will be far inferior to the "beer grade" stuff from micromatic, but I'm looking for a quick fix that is (very) temporary. Do you think that the wall thickness will impact pressure enough to make determining the proper length useless? I'm hoping to pour a pint that is at least 25% liquid beer in the next day or two.

Again, thanks alot Ed.
Brady

[btroyer]

UPDATE:

The poured beer temp is too cold now, the adjustment is more sensitive than I thought, its probably been sitting at 25 for about 10 hours now. the first pour was excellent, but the pressure had dropped (the co2 tank is inside the fridge)... bringing the pressure back up has resulted in 1/2 pints of foam...

[edramshaw]

Are the lines kinked at all? Bent a little too much perhaps. Are the lines clean? Is the check ball and retainer clip properly seated? Are you opening the faucet all the way, right away? Some people feel the need to restrict the flow by opening the faucet only a little and this causes more foam. Just a few more ideas. At 16 pounds you will need a little more than 5' of line. You can get away with the home depot stuff if it is just for trials but the stuff is just too damn fragile to mess with. I would just by a 10' length of 3/16" ID tubing from MM and cut back till you get the desired flow rate and see if that works.

[btroyer]

As far as I can tell, the place the beer line is bent the most is at the top of the tower, not much I can do there. Everything is clean, and I always try to open the tap as fast as possible (I know from experimentation that it foams way more if you don't). I'll try the longer line when it arrives.

For now, I have a working solution. It appears that my temperature adjustment helped, the beer temp is closer to 34 and the pressure is about 12 psi. I still have to pour a 1/8 to 1/4 glass of foam, but after that the head is a bit strong, but very manageable. How strongly is a typical regulator affected by temperature? I think that the pressure being read is actually lower than the pressure in the lines. I think the head is partly the flow rate, but the foam to start sounds like the tower is too warm, and my fan is only running off of 5v when it needs 12 for full speed. I'll have to try to find a universal power supply and see if that helps.

Thanks for the tips!

[lunkhead]

Are you sure the fan is blowing cool air all the way up the tower? In my first experiments with tower cooling I could never get a fan to blow air up there. A blower with pipe or tubing will do the job, and you don't need a big powerful blower either.