Reduced foam pour - my technique


  • So after a few days of frustration with 100% foamy beer that takes 20+ minutes to settle, I tried an experiment.

    1) Manually release almost all the CO2 from the keg. This left it at ~11PSI (when the valve opened to re-pressurize the beer)

    2) Leave it 24 hours and check the pressure. It was back up to 13PSI, so bleed it off again. 

    3) Repeat until leaving overnight doen't result in any increase in pressure.

    4) Pinch the tube closed with the clip to the narrowest click that still allows any beer to pass

    5) Hold the glass at an angle, touching the dispenser nozzle, and dispense beer as slowly as possible.

    It took me maybe 90s to pull a pint, and to be fair, it was 40% foam. I let it sit for a couple of minutes until the head started to dissipate, then topped off. Yes, there was some foamy spillage, but I got a clean pint with a reasonable head: 

     



  • Thanks for the info - they should write this into the instructions and product description


  • Tried the same by clamping the tube down a little more than half way and didn't have hardly any foam. I brewed the Bavarian wheat so 11-12 psi works for me! Thanks


  • First successful pour using your technique! Cheers!


  • Above pic is the first successful pour I've had, thanks to your technique! Cheers!


  • Bavarian wheat


  • After 2 failed brews due to too much foam and reading all the tips on here, I tested my 3rd brew trying a different method that doesn't require as much effort.  Essentially, during fermentation, it will naturally increase pressure based on the nature of what fermentation is and does.  So, what I did was allow the brew to ferment at it's normal pace.  Then for the final days in which it cools the keg down and holds that temp for a couple days before it's ready to pour, I bleed all the pressure out.  When the beer is cooling, the beer slowly decreases the amount of pressure it produces due to fermentation as the cooling process slows to stops fermentation.  This is the key to eliminating that wait time.  If you bleed out all the pressure at least wihtin the first day of that final cooling cycle, you've effectively removed the added pressure that lends towards excessive foaming.  On top of that, the cooling of the keg also naturally decreases pressure at the same time.  So, to view this I actually bled my keg 1 day early before the final stage.  In doing so by the time my keg reached the final cooling stage it was around 17PSI.  But, after full cooling stage of 2 days, it dropped to about 7PSI.  From here, I turned on my CO2 canister to re-introduce carbonation and pressure for pouring.  instead of doing a full proper pour immediately, I did a super slow dripping pour for no reason other than I wanted to see what would happen.  Essentially the slow pour was almost flat with very very little foam.  This was a great sign because it mean I wasn't getting only full foam like I did the first 2 brews.  So, from here, I adjusted the flow clip and did a proper pour and my result is a perfect pour and super tiny bubbles.


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