Temperature fluctuation

[CLREDBEARD]

Forgive me, as I'm completely new to owning a kegerator, and I have next to zero idea what I'm doing. I have read through the entire "Read this first" section, and have searched through a few other threads.

The problem I am having is that the temperature inside my kegerator isn't consistent. I don't have a built in thermometer as it is just a cheap Insignia 2 faucet kegerator from Best Buy, so I am using a freezer thermometer. When I come home form work in the evening, and no one has touched the kegerator, I'll open the door, and it is between 42-44 degrees. Yet when I check it again a few hours later before I go to bed, the thermometer will read about 32 degrees. Is this an issue with the kegerator, or a bad thermometer?

The reason I'm believing the issue is with the kegerator is that I can't get a good pour. I have a 1/6 barrel of Landshark, and a 1/6 barrel of Blue Moon. Shortly after setup, I could get mostly decent pours from the Blue Moon, and okay pours with a little excess foam from the landshark. Now, I cant get a good pour to save my life. It's all foam every time. I get MAYBE 1/4 inch of beer at the bottom, and the rest is foam. I finally wrapped the hoses around the top of the kegs last night, I didn't realize that was an issue, but that hasn't changed anything at all. HELP!

[djc]

Wrapping the hoses isn't the issue. The issue is you need to understand the proper way to balance the applied pressure, the temperature of the beer and the volumes of CO2 it was packaged at (sometime referred to here as v/v). You also need to understand that air temp is not what you should be watching, air is far more volatile than liquid. By opening the door to check the temp you are essentially setting up a cascade of temp issues. Landshark and Blue Moon are 2.7 v/v, so the next step is to take the temperature of the beer using a calibrated thermometer. Pull a beer into a room temp glass, dump it off or chug, pour another in the same glass. take the temp of the beer (not foam) without touching the sides of he glass. Using that value, and 2.7, consult a force carbonation chart for the applied pressure. Without a tower cooler you will have first beer foam regardless of what you do. You may want to get longer beer lines which will help slow the flow of properly balanced beer, it will not correct balance problems.

[CLREDBEARD]

What I'm saying with the air temp, is i'm using that to gauge the operation of the kegerator itself. I don't think it is running as often as it should. That's what I'm meaning by when I get home it is at 44 degrees, and has been all night and all day, but then me opening the door kicks it on and super cools it to 32 degrees. I'm not a scientist but to me it seems if it's at 44 degrees for almost 24 hours, then the beer inside the kegs will be above 40 degrees, and from my understanding, that is too warm, no?

I've also tried to take temperature of the beer, but the problem is that all I get is foam. This isn't first beer foam, this is every single beer is almost completely foam except a centimeter or so at the bottom. When I first hooked everything up, put the kegs in, and started everything, I was getting a few beers of each that weren't bad at all. I have no idea what the temp was at, as I didn't get a thermometer until I started having issues.

I will try what you are talking about first, to see if I see any change. i'm guessing, without previous knowledge, that the use here is to measure the temp of the beer, and compare that to the v/v and then the chart tells you what the pressure regulator on the co2 is supposed to be set at? I have mine around 15-16psi currently, and the little beer in the glass that I was actually able to measure a few days ago was around 40-41 in the second glass.

[CLREDBEARD]

Okay, I noticed a new issue today. I had been trying to keep the pressure around 14-16 when starting all this. Today I noticed the temperature stayed lower, so I got a picher to try and test out the beer. Entire picher and another pint glass after of all foam...

The new issue I noticed, is that the pressure will not come down below about 18. Even with the adjustment knob ALL the way out, full stop, when I pull the relief valve to release all the pressure, it shoots right back up to 18-19. With the adjustment knob all the way in full stop, the pressure goes up to about 20-21. Is this a bad pressure regulator? Is it a bad keg? Bad lines?

[djc]

Bad regulator or bad gage.