Foamy beer

[Mdean4421]

Newbie here. Got 2 1/4 barrel slims hooked up. First couple beers always almost all foam. Pour them slow and sideways, and still this much foam. Tried turning the air down. Seems to always creep back up. I like a little head on my beer, but this ain’t it ha. What yall suggest keeping the air level at and why does it always creep up?

 

[passedpawn]

You need to find a way to chill that tower. That is likely the cause of the foam. Beer is warmer in there and is releasing its CO2. There are other possible causes, but that one is most likely. If you have a picnic tap, connect it to one of your kegs and let it get nice and cold, then dispense from that. If it is a good pour, you know the problem isn't in the keg.

10psi is a good pressure for the CO2 tank. Less and you'll lose carbonation in the beer eventually.

Flow control faucets help a lot. I have 3 perlick 650ss.

 

[VikeMan]

If you have over carbonated your beer, it's going to be over carbonated for quite a while, even if you turn the CO2 down. That aside, since you have a tower, you might be experiencing "first pour foam," which happens because the faucet/shank tend to be warmer (at first) than the beer. Pouring a second pint immediately after the first can help diagnose that.

If you've eliminated a warm faucet/shank as the problem, and if you know that the beer had not been over carbonated, there are several factors that contribute to balance (or unbalance) of a draft system. Here is a step by step method to balance the system:

- Determine the average temperature inside the fridge.
- Decide how many volumes of CO2 you want
- Using a keg carbonation chart, find the PSI needed to maintain the CO2 level you chose, given the temperature
- Given the PSI from the previous step, determine the length of beer line (given the Inner Diameter of the beer line you have) that you need to balance the system, so that the beer exits the faucet fast enough for a reasonably fast pour, without excessive foaming. There are calculators that can help with this last step.

 

[Broken Crow]

+1 ^^ to the warm tap. I took another look back at your previous leak-posts and I don't see any vent hose going up the tower. Take a look and see if you have a place you could mount one, or just consider buying a tower-cooler:
https://www.morebeer.com/products/draft-tower-fan-kit.html
We can see the condensation on the right tap, so it was definitely much warmer than the beer, consider adding some extra insulation to the tower-cap and any larger bare areas around the shank, leaving as much of the shank itself exposed inside..you can just reuse packing foam. Here's a pic I pic I took when changing lines and you can see the extra bit of insulation I added sitting off to the side, don't forget to insulate the cap..it really does help a lot;

 

[Mdean4421]

Man yall are awesome! Thank yall. Ya - it’s gotta be the faucet is warmer. When I did the install, I put a piece of PVC for the small gap above the keg to counter top, but ya I could slide some insulation in there. I love the tower cooler piece too. That’s great.

Ya, I just took the cap off the kegerator, stuck in pvc pipe that goes up to tower thinking that cold air would keep the tower chill.