WOW!....I always wanted to have draft beer at home so I bought a kegerator thinking that all I needed was a beer keg and CO2 connected and that's it!! I was searching on how to tap a keg propertly and ended up here.....How little did I know!!.....but I'm committed to have my home bar draft beer. All I need to do is follow the advice from persons/experts who want to help and patience I bought a used Kegerator Summit SBC500-B. Previous owner said he paid $1200.... I checked online and price was right. I bought it for $300(I think I got a good deal). This is what I've done so far: For what I've read temperature is very important so I checked kegerator functionality. Powered on, turn knob all the way to coldest and put a glass of water and let kegerator cool down overnight. Checked next morning and temperature was at 34F, so I turned knob down to about 3/4 removed glass of water and placed another one. 12 hours later I checked temp and it was at 37F. After 24 hours the temp stills at 37F so kegerator is good. I've purchased new dual regulator, faucet(Perlick 650SS), shank, 15ft beer line, 5ft gas line and tower cooler. Just waiting for keg Sam Adams Boston Lager These are my questions: 1.- After keg arrives... should I tap it and turn on CO2 at 10-12psi and let it settle for few hours? or let keg settle for few hours and then tap it? 2.- Is it important to consider the altitud where I live to set up CO2 pressure? The altitud here is about 2900 Ft 3.- Does tower cooler needs to be running all the time? or can I turn it on during the day and turn it off at night or maybe one day on one day off? I'd greatly appreciate any feedback/advice you can give me. Thank you!
You should read up on balancing, pick any one of the 20 threads here that have foam or kegerator problems in the titles. There is a link between the volumes of CO2 for the bear (i.e. carbonation level) which is different for different beers, the temperature (your choice here) and the pressure you need to apply to the system to keep the CO2 in solution. A force carbonation chart ties that all together. Set temp to taste, and using the volumes of CO2 find the proper pressure. You can tap right away, it will most certainly be foamy to start from shaking in transit and temp not being optimal. To keep first glass foam at bay you need the cooler to run at all times. If you turn it off, the beer in the line gets warm and then you have to wait for everything to cool down again. To be foam free you need to understand balance and maintain the same temperature from keg to faucet. 12 psi to start is ok until you can get an accurate temperature reading to adjust to. That will take 10-12 hours - the keg has to acclimate to the temperature of the kegerator.
you are well on your way. this sounds like a very good deal. what Dougy says. and this too. when you get a new keg it may have warmed a bit during travel. this will cause foaming until it is chilled again. you can tap it whenever you like. the whole system is closed until you open the faucet. makes no difference. you can roll a keg, toss it, drop it, spin it... doesn't matter too much. the "spear", a stainless straw that goes from the coupler to the bottom of the keg, picks up liquid at the bottom of the keg. so even if there is excessive foam at the top, it is still liquid at the bottom. and the gas re-equilibrates fairly quickly anyway. bars and restaurants roll kegs all the time. just don't go crazy. altitude. good question. 2,900 feet is not too much of a problem and really not something you are going to need to deal with yet. we will add 1 pound of restriction for each 2,000 feet above sea level. that means when balancing the system with choker (the 3/16" tubing from the coupler to the faucet) and additional pound is needed. that is not much really. and you are going to live with the results as is. everyone has their perfect line length. as long as the pour is not too fast and wild or drips too slow it is good. leave the tower cooler on 24/7. don't turn of your refrigerator and likewise don't turn off your tower cooler. unless you like to waste beer. lastly, American keg beer is not pasteurized. well, except Anchor and that's about it. keg beer must be kept cold. not like milk, but it will go sour if allowed to get too warm for too long. some really big beers have protection from the high alcohol and hops but that is not something you want to experiment with. keep it cold. 38 is good for dispense and preserves beer freshness. this is what makes beer from the keg better than the bottle. usually. Cheers.
Ok....Keg arrived and put everything together...first I set CO2 pressure at 12psi, beer line 10ft and temperature at 38f. Beer came out very foamy. I noticed bubbles in the beer line and also noticed a leak in the tap coupler. Fixed leak, cut down beer line to 9 ft, vent keg and set CO2 pressure to 10psi. Beer still foamy and bubbles still in line beer. The bubbles are just about 2 inches from tap coupler the rest of the line is solid. Tower cooler on temperature of first pour 40º, 2nd pour 38º I noticed that 1st pour is very foamy but 2nd pour is about right. I also noticed that after I finished drinking my beer and poured another one I get the same results...1st pour is foamy even though tower cooler is running thru tower. What am I doing wrong?
this is a classic kegerator problem. the first pour is foamy and the second is fine. it is a problem with your tower cooler, and probably the single most common headache. the beer in the line is a bit warmer than the beer in the keg. cold liquid can hold more dissolved gas than warm liquid. if you open a can of soda that has been in a warm car for example, the soda will explode with foam. in this instance, gas is breaking out of solution in the line, and you are pouring a few ounces of foam followed by clear beer. pouring clear beer on top of foam will not eliminate the problem however, you will still have a foamy mess. but the second pour is fine because you are getting beer directly from the cold keg; it hasn't had time to warm up in the line. the solution is to be sure your tower cooler is working as best it can. a 2 degree difference is really not huge, but it is enough to throw the whole show out of whack. we aren't being facetious when we talk about the need to have beer at 38F. to be honest, there is not much you can do except fool with the placement of the intake fan and tube outlet, though that is not something you can mess with in this instance. be sure you have decent insulation in your tower along with a vapor barrier if possible (aka clear packing tape) some people have success by using a copper tube from the fridge up into the tower. copper is a great energy conductor. if you really want to get it going perfectly, invest in a small 12 cfm blower and tinker a bit. http://www.foxxequipment.com/parts.php?id=7848 just enough to get the cold air circulating. and of course, fix all leaks. once everything is plumbed up tight and kept cold you will find that you can manage beer pours nicely. you will not be able to 100% eliminate a flash of foam in this system, but damn close. there will always be a small amount of beer in the circuit that has warmed a bit more than 38. the faucet and shank will not be 38F in a direct draw system no matter how hard you try. Cheers.
In addition to the good advice above, I suggest you really learn how to use a keg carbonation chart (search Google). Once you determine your beer's carb level and temp, there is a pressure that will keep all this in balance. This is where the chart comes into play. You will still see posters to this Forum who's solution to foam is to keep cranking down the pressure until the foam goes away . . . but don't be a knob-twiddler. While this may make your beer pour pretty, it pretty much guarantees an under-carbed brew. Regarding beer-line lengths; different manufacturers give different resistance results. So your 9 feet may equal another kegger's 6 feet (or 11 feet). Some simple trail and error typically solves this problem. Plenty of details about this in past threads, or if you bog down, just ask away. The beauty of understanding how all of this works and setting it up correctly is you basically go forever without having a problem. Well worth the effort to get it right.
