Help! Kegorator

Two primary things cause foam, temperature differences and not being properly balanced. Do you have a tower cooler or are you just making the assumption that it feels cold enough? You also need to understand the relationship between beer temperature (not 'cold throughout', an actual temperature), volumes of CO2 (referred to as V/V) and the applied pressure.

Take a room temperature glass, pour a beer. Immediately dump or chug, pull another beer and measure the liquid temp with a calibrated thermometer. Don't touch the sides of the glass or the foam.

What beer are you serving? It has a specific value for v/v.

Look up a force carbonation chart to determine the correct pressure to set on the regulator.

This is where you start from, let's see how it goes.

 

I agree with Doug. Temperature and pressure mean everything. If they are not set properly, then you will get foam almost every time. If there is nothing to circulate air, like a tower cooler or fan, then I would bet that there if a pretty significant temperature difference between the top of the unit and the bottom.

 

Not to go off on a tangent, but that's a good point that I hadn't considered. My lines exit the back of the collar, then travel up to the bar-mounted tower. About 2' of line is uninsulated, leaving 4'-6' inside the keezer. The 'chilled' lines are coiled up and attached to the underside of the lid. While I've learned to live with the initial 1/2 pint of foam (that's the barkeep's share ), I'm wondering if I might reduce the foam a bit by simply circulating the air inside the keezer. BTW, if my Math is correct, 2' of 3/16" line holds about 2/3 oz of beer, so I don't sweat it.

 

Without a doubt it will help. Even the temp difference between top and bottom of the kegerator is enough to mess things up. A fan will get you uniform temp, a cooled line pushed up to the shanks will likely accomplish cooling of the shanks, line and circulation.

 

Initially, I only had a tower cooler. It was enough to cool the shank and lines in the tower, but it wasn't enough circulate the air inside the kegerator. CO2 was breaking out of solution in the lines near the top of the unit. I measured the temperature at the bottom of the unit and the top, and the top was consistently 7-9 degrees warmer. Since adding a circulation fan, I never have any CO2 breaking out of solution. I get a perfect pour on the first glass. The unit also runs less since adding a circulation fan.