Hi Everyone - I'm new to having a kegerator and am on my 4th keg now. I've noticed with the last two kegs my first beer of the evening pours just fine but my subsequent beers are very foamy and result in 3-4 inches of head in a normal pint glass. My psi is around 11-12 and my temp is 36 degrees. Anyone else have this issue and know the fix? Thanks in advance.
Hmmm...couple of questions here. How are you getting your temperature reading? Hint: the most accurate way is to put a glass 1/2 full of water on the box floor next to the keg. Take the temperature with an accurate thermometer of the water after four hours and that will give you a true report. Air temp doesn’t count. My guess is that you are closer to 40* than you realize. How long is the beer line from the coupler to the faucet? The minimum is 5’ of 3/16” beer line, I recommend 6.5’ to add a little extra resistance and slow the flow of beer. Your PSI looks good...if you can trust the gauge. Keg box CO2 gauges are not tolerant of abuse. Do this; before pouring that first beer of the day, take a peek at your beer line where it joins the coupler and then follow it upward to the first curve. Is it packed solid with beer? (My guess is that you will see pockets of CO2 which will show that the pressure is a little low) I’m guessing your pouring technique is good as you have poured non-foamy beers in the past, but it never hurts to remind folks that the faucet is like an on/off switch. It should be fully open or fully closed. Anything in between results in foam. Report back with your findings and there are a bunch of people ready to lend a hand.
Hey IceAce - Thanks for the help! I checked the temperature and you were correct that it was running warmer than I expected so I've reduced it now so that I'm actually closer to 36 degrees. I triple checked the PSI and it appears it may have creeped up to 15 on me (or I was doing a bad job of reading it... likely) so I've reset it to get down to 11. Poured a few testers (in the name of trouble shooting) and it looked much better! Second beer poured as well or better than the first. Thanks for the help! Mark
