The Dreaded FOAM!!

[Mylo]

I have an AA on tap that had been pouring very well. All of a sudden, I get nothing but foam, the temp in my fridge is 36ish, if anything it could be colder since the weather has dropped signifacantly this past week. (Fridge is in the back garage with no heat) Regulator is reading 12PSI, with approx. five feet of 3/16 line to the tap. Does anyone have any ideas on where to start to fix this??

Well, if the beer is colder than 36, you could have carbonated to almost 3 volumes. Even if the height differential from the middle of your keg to your faucet was 3 feet (which it probably isn't) - 5 feet of 3/16" line is too short. Warm up the fridge, turn down the pressure, or get a longer hose.... That's right, I said it.


Mylo

[alan_marks]

Who do I contact to get a longer hose?
Can you get it in cans?

Thats right...cans...

j/k

[Phil185]

Well, if the beer is colder than 36, you could have carbonated to almost 3 volumes. Even if the height differential from the middle of your keg to your faucet was 3 feet (which it probably isn't) - 5 feet of 3/16" line is too short. Warm up the fridge, turn down the pressure, or get a longer hose.... That's right, I said it.


Mylo[/quote]


My fridge is in a non-heated area, so the only way I can bring up the temp will be to bring the keg to my front garage, no biggie there, especially since well, it's getting fricken cold out there!! I'm still working on SWMBO to bring up the fridge/kegerator to the front garage.

edited to add.. and for the longer hose....

[Phil185]

It's fuckin frozen!!!! I can't believe it froze inside my fridge, than again, it has been getting into single digits at night. Brought it into the house to thaw out for a bit. Depending on how much the residual yeast clump up, I'll have to transfer it to another keg. Ice beer baby.. should be a strong Amber now!

[Mylo]

It's fuckin frozen!!!! I can't believe it froze inside my fridge, than again, it has been getting into single digits at night. Brought it into the house to thaw out for a bit. Depending on how much the residual yeast clump up, I'll have to transfer it to another keg. Ice beer baby.. should be a strong Amber now!

Your other option is to get a small reptile pad, and swap your single stage temp controller for a dual one. Probably will cost you an additional $70, assuming you can offload your old one on ebay or to another homebrewer in your club.


Mylo

[captain carrot]

Weeeeelll. Your keg might be getting low. Your pressure may be too high on the Co2. If the temp drops in the fridge the beer may absorb more Co2. It one of me beers is overcarbonated I shut off the Co2 supply and bleed off almost all of the excess using the pressure relief on the keg. Use the Co2 coming out of solution to push the beer or give it a small burst from the tanks to dispense. When the foaming stops you can turn the Co2 back on but maybe at a lower pressure. I prime all my kegs with 1/2c of corn sugar and found that dry hopping will increase Co2 levels (and foaming) also.

Once again, I can't speak for Phil 185, but both kegs in question for me are nearly full, the problem continues whether or not I have the gas on, and continues when I bleed off gas.

Interesting thought about the dry hopping. These beers were dry hopped significantly after fermentation was 90% complete. I had fermented 10 gallons of this beer in a converted Sanke keg and dry hopped in there before transferring to the kegs for serving. I've never had a dry hopped beer behave this way before. What would the explanation be for that?

I dry hop in the kegs I serve from. For some reason the beer is more highly carbonated after conditioning. I have no explanation.

[HighCountry]

Holy crap...this is weird, because I was getting ready to post something on this exact same phenomenon. I've been brewing and kegging for years and years and have never had this happen to me. Here are my details: Red IPA or strong ale, depending on how you want to look at it, kegged for a couple weeks and pouring fine. Then the foam happened - and it keeps coming no matter how much gas I let off or put back in. And here's my twist - I figured it's not something in the hardware, because it happened on two different kegs at the same time. These kegs are both on separate CO2 tanks, separate taps, and in separate refrigerator units. Both were pouring normally and then all of a sudden...

I'm very, very interested in how this conversation is going to go, especially since I owe two cases of this sucker to a friend.

So as it turns out, the answer to my problem is that I'm a moron.

The keg was not overpressurized, there was nothing in the beer because of dry hopping to cause it to over foam. Just the fact that I forgot to try purging the dispense dip tube. A hop leaf must have gotten stuck in the dip tube. I finally thought of this yesterday after trying everything else multiple times. The weird thing is that this happened to two different kegs of the same beer at the exact same time. It didn't happen to any of the two other kinds of dry-hopped beer that I have sitting around. That threw me for a loop.

So I guess if you see any other advice from me on the forum, you should probably avoid it, since I'm a moron.

[captain carrot]

So as it turns out, the answer to my problem is that I'm a moron.

The keg was not overpressurized, there was nothing in the beer because of dry hopping to cause it to over foam. Just the fact that I forgot to try purging the dispense dip tube. A hop leaf must have gotten stuck in the dip tube. I finally thought of this yesterday after trying everything else multiple times. The weird thing is that this happened to two different kegs of the same beer at the exact same time. It didn't happen to any of the two other kinds of dry-hopped beer that I have sitting around. That threw me for a loop.

So I guess if you see any other advice from me on the forum, you should probably avoid it, since I'm a moron.

Hey welcome to the club! My name is Captain Carrot and I'm a moron too! Just wait till you leave the drain valve open on your boil kettle or conical while you're filling it. Been there....done that....certified moron.