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Foam in the Glass - What Gives?!

philm63

Grandmaster Brewer
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Just tapped my latest IPA - nuttin' out of the ordinary except this one had a whirlpool hop stage prior to final chill. When I dispense a glass, it is all foam.

Here's what I know:

- This is my first brew since my wife discovered last year that we were going to be adding a little one to our cozy household - it's been almost a year.
- I had a keg of porter sitting in my kegerator for that entire year (oops).
- I'm using that same keg for this current IPA.
- I cleaned-rinsed-sanitized this keg as I normally would before racking - hot water and PBW - hot water rinse - warm Star-San solution.
- After PBW-ing the keg, I blew that water through my kegerator lines - as I normally do when switching kegs out.
- After the sanitizing rinse in the keg, I blew the Star-San solution through the kegerator lines, as I normally do when switching kegs out.
- I force-carbonate with 30 psi for 2 days (my normal protocol for ales) then drop it to 12 psi for serving - this has always worked well for me.

Here's what I see:

- Foam coming from the tap. A lot. Even after the tap has come to serving temp - all parts of the serving system are at the same temperature.

Here's what I did:

- Pulled the keg, pulled the OUT post and dip-tube, diassembled everything, re-cleaned-rinsed-sanitized (using a brush for the inside of the tube this time) and reassembled.
- Pulled the tap, disassembled, cleaned by hand with hot PBW, rinsed well, reassembled and reinstalled after the below:
- Ran a brush through the line at the top of the tower before reinstalling the tap.
- Removed and re-cleaned by hand the line fitting for the OUT post - the one on the end of the line, you know, the black one.
- Repressurized the keg at 12 psi and ran some product off into a flask to flush the lines - again, and then poured a pint. All foam!

AAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!

Suffice it to say; the entire system has been gone through - every piece by hand - and temps and pressures are as they've always been in the past with no issues, but this time; issues!

Help? Anyone?
 
theory #1: you could have over-carbed it.  2-3 days at 25-30 psi is my method too, so i can identify with you in that it usually takes more like 3-4+ days to get it as bad as you've described, but could be it.

theory #2: your serving pressure is a bit high.  i definitely serve at 12ish psi regularly, but sometimes, especially if a beer is on the over-carbed side, 12 is too high.

suggestion #1:  shut off the gas to this keg and serve it via the pressure in the keg for a couple days until the carb level settles down to where you'd like it.

suggestion #2: reduce your serving pressure down to 4ish psi after that's done.

good luck dude!

oh, did you hit your FG?  any chance the yeast is still working?
 
Thanks for the tips j -

Yeah, FG was confirmed - 1006 two days in a row - it was well past activity and was crashed for a few days at 32 F before going into a secondary for dry-hopping. Pretty sure there was no activity left to have.

This was a 3-gallon batch, too, my first (I used to do nuttin' but 5G) and all else being equal, I supposed that theory of over-carb is accurate considering I started with a smaller volume of beer, and piped in the same amount of CO2 as I would for a larger volume.

I also am already dropping the pressure in the keg - cut-off the gas yesterday and have been burping the keg form time to time to drop the pressure. I also tried yesterday dispensing at 3 to 4 psi - same thing; foam.

I normally dispense at 12 psi as this is what holds good carbonation in the keg, and I use 11 feet of line to properly balance the system so it dispenses perfectly. Well... it USED to, anyway...
 
philm63 said:
cut-off the gas yesterday and have been burping the keg form time to time to drop the pressure.

fingers crossed that a couple days of this does the trick... i've heard that over-carbing (if that's our issue here) is a PITA to remedy, I haven't personally overshot by too far yet though.  stay in touch...
 
I think you pretty much nailed it, j. I shake the keg lightly, burp, shake, burp, and when I shake, I hear a lot of foam in the keg. Prolly take a few days of gentle shaking/rocking and burping (the keg, not me...) (ok, me too!)

Time will tell...
 
Had that happen to me too.  Not sure what your fill level is inside the keg, but I was told to pull out about 25% of the volume (mine was chock full) into a growler to allow some headspace for the co2 to dissipate into and keep burping. Did some swirling to speed it along.  Worked well
 
It's coming around now - day two into burping the CO2 out periodically and I can actually get more beer than foam in my glass. Overcarbed my beer was, learned something new I did.
 
This is a great post.  Kegging for me is next and I picked up good tips.

Thanks to All!!
 
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