Gassy kegged beer

[glennheinzel]

Aloha.

The beer coming out of my keg is extremely foamy and I'm at a loss to explain why. Key points being:

• It was pouring okay up until a few days ago.
• The problem flared up after I replaced the main beer line today and thoroughly cleaned the perlick flow control tap. The cleaning was done independent of the problem keg.
• Wondering if the issue might've been due to a warm shank/tap. Even after leaving it a couple of hours, the problem was still evident.
• I tried adjusting the Perlick Flow-Control, but that didn't make any difference.
• I attached a picnic tap and I was still getting extremely gassy beer.
• I burped the keg and tried pouring beer at an extremely low psi, but it was still foam.
• The regulator had been set to 15 psi for a few weeks (and the beer had been fine until now). It is extremely unlikely that anyone fiddled with the settings.

Is anyone able to shed light on why the beer has suddenly gone all foamy?

 

[mckenry]

Is your CO2 tank nearly empty? I found once that was the cause of an overly gassy beer. Basically the reg couldnt control the gas when the bottle was near empty. Even though you think youve been able to back it off, it might not really be working properly.

 

[glennheinzel]

Is your CO2 tank nearly empty? I found once that was the cause of an overly gassy beer. Basically the reg couldnt control the gas when the bottle was near empty. Even though you think youve been able to back it off, it might not really be working properly.

Interesting - thanks for your input. The gauge indicates that there's still a fair amount of gas in it, but perhaps that's part of the same problem?

The co2 cylinder feels reasonably heavy, however I haven't had to replace it in a couple of years (I haven't been doing much brewing) so perhaps I'm out of touch with what an almost empty co2 cylinder feels like.

I'll drop the pressure and will see how it reacts over the next couple of days.

 

[mckenry]

Interesting - thanks for your input. The gauge indicates that there's still a fair amount of gas in it, but perhaps that's part of the same problem?

The co2 cylinder feels reasonably heavy, however I haven't had to replace it in a couple of years (I haven't been doing much brewing) so perhaps I'm out of touch with what an almost empty co2 cylinder feels like.

I'll drop the pressure and will see how it reacts over the next couple of days.

Yeah, Ive had and still have a few different regs. The storage needle pretty much stays on full until its empty. Bloody useless really. I own micromatic, keg king and another which I cant remember the brand now. None of them have impressed me with accuracy tbh. The bottle might last a year, but only in the last few days does the storage go down. If i havent seen it in those days, the beer gets frothy, even though the keg is obviously heavy, then itll stop pouring, no gas. Swap the bottle and beer is pouring well again. Unfortunately its just one of many things....

 

[dave81]

Kinda sounds overgassed still .
Burp again and pour a beer.if no change burp again pour a beer and so on.
Is it all froth or just mostly?
Maybe some gunk in your beer line needs cleaning.
Just sounds like its over gassed though (although 15psi is not that high) is your keg mearly out of beer? Mine tend to get gassy towards the end ie im drinking to slowly

 

[glennheinzel]

Update - I dropped the pressure to 6 psi and burped the keg. Beer is pouring okay now so I've bumped the pressure up to 12 psi (saison) and will test again this evening. Thanks all for thoughts and suggestions on this.

FYI - Maybe the keg is haunted. I poured one cloudy beer, then one clear beer, then a couple of cloudy beers and then it was clear again. :blink: