So I screwed up and I turned my keggerator off for a day. My beer was perfectly carbed and now the kegs warmed about 10 degrees. The pressure in the regulator went from like 12 to 20 and I reset it. The kegs have cooled again for about a day and I'm trying to pour beer. The glasses are 1/2 foam right now. I've burped them several times, there are no kinks in the line and they SHOULD be serving proper beer. What gives? They lines are 10' 1/4 ID. The temp should be in the high 30s and the regulators are at 12ish PSI. I need to get this right in the next 24 hours. I've got a party coming up! Advice is most welcome.
If your lines are really 1/4" (and not 3/16"), you should normally need a longer beer line at 12 psi, like 14 or 15 feet. But was your beer pouring properly before you turned of the kegerator?
It was, and usually does . I bumped the PSI up to 30 to try to force something into the beer by the time the party starts in 9 hours. I hope this works out. Edit: and my lines are 3/16. I was going off memory.
Is the beer itself back in the correct temperature range? If the beer is still too warm I have found that that will cause a lot of foaming too.
Whoa. Why are you bumping to 30? If your beer was carb'd before, it still is. Temporarily warming up didn't change that. I would get it back to normal pressure and temp. Once the beer is actually at your normal temp (which can take a while), it should pour normally.
in your situation, i think you are in the middle of a party and you are serving a glass of foam, you may think about shutting off the gas entirely. sounds like there is enough gas for serving at this point. you can always bring on 11 psi or so if it begins to pour slow and flat. and you are venting excess gas too, right? you can balance things later. next, get that keg as cold as possible. ice it in a cooler if you have to. and try to be gentle with it, since like any carbonated beverage that gets shaken it is just going to foam even more. good luck.
Thanks for the advice guys. Just being patient and pouring a glass, letting it sit, and topping off later seemed to work fine. I'll try to make sure I just let everything ride for a week prior to a party so I can fine tune things beforehand.
