Draft pouring issues

[Beamer]

Hey all,
I have two different beers on tap at the moment both carbed same time same temp, my american pale ale is pouring perfect but on the other tap my mid strength pilsner is pouring quite quicker causing a little more foaming.
Is it possible that the pilsner is less dense and doesnt need as much pressure to serve at or am I looking into it the wrong way.

All other beers have poured fine, first ever mid strength as it was caused by a real ********* efficency.

Cheers,
Beamer

 

[peteru]

I have a similar issue with a dark lager and a rye IPA. The lager is fine, but the IPA is foaming. I closed the manifold to both and let out some pressure on the IPA keg. It's still frothy. Fridge temperature is about 7C, font is cooled with a fan.

I'll see if things change by tomorrow, once some of the CO2 had a chance to come out of the beer and into the keg head space.

 

[Beamer]

Thanks peteru, I took the pilsner off the gas and it started to pour well. Please let me know your results

 

[Tropico]

Change the kegs to the other tap to see if it is the beer, or the line/tap that is causing your problem.

 

[peteru]

Good news. After shutting off the manifold to the IPA and letting some pressure out, then leaving it overnight, I'm now at a point where the pour and carbonation on the IPA are fine. It just looks like that the different styles of beer have different carbonation characteristics. I guess I'll be investing in a couple of simple inline regulators so that I can have different pressure in each keg.

 

[Beamer]

Awesome peteru nothing better than a perfect IPA, my pilsner is pouring well and keeping good carbonation with no gas, thinking my pilsner was at a colder temp than the APA.

Cheers and thanks for your info.

 

[peteru]

This is my first time kegging - only got the KegKing Series 4 at Easter. I'm still learning, but so far I am loving the amount of control that I have when compared to bottling. Once you prime and bottle, you have no control over things like carbonation. With a keg system and a dedicated fridge, you get precise control over serving temperature and carbonation.

Why the hell did I waste a couple of decades brewing into bottles?

 

[Beamer]

I feel for ya, I bought my kegerator about 9 months, I did 4 months of bottling and that was enough for me. The time spent washing sanitizing and capping now seems wasteful, im now learning to bottle from the keg, oh and the time waiting for bottles to carb!!! Oh the pain

 

[pist]

Sounds to me like your pils was overcarbed. Co2 will come out of solution without the gas on it to maintain the headspace, so id be hooking the gas back up now you have poured a couple and giving it a go

 

[Beamer]

Thanks pist im thinking the same, ill bleed it off again hook the gas up again and see how it is at lunch

 

[schtev]

I've found that the grain bill of your beer can make a significant difference to foam production. Had a session pale ale with a healthy dose of Carafoam foam up frequently until the keg kicked. However an English pale ale with just MO grain has little to no head at all. Same tap, same serving pressure.

Might be obvious to some but it only clicked with me after I swapped out the keg.

 

[MichaelM]

I've also had more foaming issues with my heavier beers(higher FG) I think the foaming might be a result of the dextrins remaining in the beer from the speciality malts.

 

[fdsaasdf]

However an English pale ale with just MO grain has little to no head at all. Same tap, same serving pressure.

Having made a few bitters, English pales and Session IPAs using Maris Otter I can report very similar behaviour. The beer laces the glass beautifully and flavours are fine but even when properly carbonated there's barely more than a centimetre of head and far less after it settles. Never an issue with any JW, BB, TF or other base malts.