spurt of foam

[drinklongtrail]

I did a keg conversion kit and initially had some of the common issues (beer flowing too fast from tap causing foam, etc.). After a couple of 1/6 barrels and hours reading these forums, I finally got it tweaked and running perfect for a few kegs.

Now, for some reason, when I pour the first pint of the day it is perfect. After that each of the next pours has a spurt of foam at the beginning of the pour. What would cause this spurt of foam at the beginning of a pour.

I'm fairly certain that I am not causing turbulance by slowly opening/closing the tap.

psi 12
air cooled tower
about 20' of 1/4" I.D. line
beer temp in fridge 34 degrees
beer temp at dispense is usually a few degrees warmer
Everything is clean (I clean the system after every 1/6 barrel).

[jackstraw]

Holy cow! TWENTY FEET of beer line????? I thought the standard was about 5' of 3/16 line. Are you at sea level?

What kind of beer? 12 psi might be too high. Usually it's 12-14 psi at 38F. Then drop it one pound for every two degrees colder.

[monkey710]

20' of beer line? Now according to Scott you could perfectly pour into a thimble with that flow rate!!

But Jackstraw is right...what beer?

[CableGuy]

Get that beer line squared away first.

[drinklongtrail]

I have a remote system approximately 5-6 feet away from the fridge. When I set up the system, I replaced the 5 feet of 3/16" beer line with ten feet of 1/4" beer line . The beer was shooting out of the faucet way too fast (I probably should have stayed with the 3/16" line). There was not enough restriction in the 1/4" line so I lengthened it to about 20 feet to slow the rate of pour. It was flowing perfectly until this 1/6 barrel.

By the way, it is a two product set up. The other keg is pouring perfectly.

The faucet with the spurt of foam is tapped to a 1/6th of Harpoon IPA (which worked perfectly with the last keg).

The faucet that is pouring properly is tapped to Long Trail Ale.

There are no bubbles in the beer line.

Could it be as simple as I did not tighten the screws enough on the faucet last time I cleaned them? How tight are you supposed to tighten the screw that holds the rubber stopper?

[jumper]

Guys look at his beer line diameter... he's got 1/4" line, 20 feet would still cause a slower pour but its not that unheard of. A slow flow rate does not always equal no foam.

I'd try decoupling, pull the faucet off and re-seat everything and recouple it and see what happens. Could be a keg defect.

[Scott Zuhse]

Yes, I read the thimble comment! Unfortunately, this did not sit well with USMCNUT. By the way, we did test seven feet of 3/16" ID @ 14 PSIG in a recent workshop and the result was an expected 100 oz. / min. flow speed. 10' would have been significantly slower.

If anyone desires to measure your flow speed, simply catch beer for 15 seconds in some type of a graduated container which will catch at least 32 oz. Multiply this by four for flow speed per minute. Industry standard is around 128 oz. min. (your flow speed should be what ever you desire). Preferably use a container that you would drink from.