Hey guys, I have been having issues with the amount of foam in my beer and I was hoping that someone could give me a hand with this. My "kegerator" is as follows. I have a Deep Freezer which no longer works, so I use it as a ice bucket to keep the kegs in. I have removed the lid and built a custom lid and insulated it which allows the ice to last 14 days before it completely melts. When I get kegs, I normally purchase them, put them into the freezer, let it sit for a couple days when I am ready to host an event, load it up with ice a day in advance, and I don't tap them until the following day. After I tap the kegs, I get perfect pours. Normally I host an event and the tap gets used frequently for the first day, and then a couple days later when I am pouring, I get more foam than beer. I have a full CO2 tank, completely sealed with absolutely no leakage. I couldn't tell you the exact temperature of the kegs, but I can confidently say that the temperature would be exactly the same the day of the initial pours as the days when I start to get head. My line is 5' air hose, 5' beer hose. When I tap the kegs, I have the CO2 at 14 psi, and the next day when I check the regulator, it is still exactly the same. Days/weeks later, it will still be at 14 psi. I have pulled the pin on the coupler in the past to ensure that the regulator is not broken, and as expected, the pin drops. Could you please give me some suggestions? The remaining kegs are roughly half full at this point in time and the issue is still at hand.
Your getting good pours right off the bat because your dispensing the keg at the proper co2 in the keg. By the next day you have lost that.You can't just wing draft beer with applied pressure. At minimum buy a cheap $8.00 digital therm and calibrate it or use offset differential to calculate.( can be found 100 times on here). I assume your keg is probably pouring in the 40Fs so pressure probably close. But with 5ft of line @14lbs thats too short. Is keg totally submerged in ice? You really need to know the temp to fix this. Otherwise your just gonna keep wasting expensive beer..
I have a thermometer, and next time I do an ice run, I'll use it to get the exact temp, unfortunately, it costs ~ $60 for enough ice to fill and cover the kegs so I hold off on that as much as possible. Would you suggest that I lower the psi, or that I buy a 10' length of tube to replace it with? Also, I am confused with why the the pressure is off. You say it dispenses the first of the keg at the proper co2, and the first of the keg is at 14 psi. Normally I tap the kegs, get the first pour at least 4 hours before my guests arrive, to make sure that I am not going to have any problems and just generally be ready, I thought that should be enough time to stabilize the pressure. Being that it is hooked up to a regulated pressure, why would the pressure be good for day 1 but not for day 7 under the same pressure and temperature? By day 7, the ice level still surpasses the height on the kegs, being that the kegs are submerged in ice water at this point. The last of the ice does not melt till approximately the 2 week mark.
Part of your issue is that your temperature is changing. When you start out you don't have any water, and you have just ice touching the kegs which is really point contact here and there, not full contact. This is likely giving you a beer temp in the 40 degree area, assuming the keg went in at 40. As the ice melts your keg is now sitting in a 32 degree slurry that is in full contact with the keg. This will be driving the temperature down to 32. Your applied pressure for 40 is different than your applied pressure for 32. Also at 32 you are very close to the beer separating into water and alcohol components.
Thank you so much for that doug, I didn't even think about that. In the future I plan on doing bigger better things with my kegerator, but for now this is the setup I've got and I can only make small changes at a time. I'll have to get creative to prevent this issue in the future. Might be time to replace the motor and make this thing work again. Im looking into extending the hose as well if that is capable of making any difference at all. Is 10' preferable over 5'? If so why? I am using https://www.kegworks.com/kit-two-tap-wall-mount-conv-kit-w-5-co2-tank
