All Head from pour

[Peter Rundle-Curry]

Pop, Unfortunately I didn't undertake a post morton on the liner and they have gone to the refuge God..

I did look closely at the gauze covering the outlet of the liner and it seemed blocked, I guess it had to be to be able to hold the air inside..

I have sent an email to Paul in the tech support, he seemed to think it's a one off but I'm beginning to think this may not be the case.

Even a partial blockage I would think would cause the beer to froth and not flow freely, a partial blockage may not be so obvious to see!

Maybe we all should start collecting information about the kegs that froth, I'm convinced it has absolutely nothing to do with the secondary fermentation.  I have OCD so every keg undergoes the exact same treatment regardless of the type of brew.

Oh by the way the Four Leaf is the best beer I have made so far ☺️

 

Pete

[Big Pop]

No worries Pete.  The reason I suggested an internal examination of the keg liner stems from my previous experience with a bloated/distended keg of Thomas C Celeb Ale a little over a month ago.  When emptied I had a difficult time removing the keg liner due to air trapped therein.  A very similar circumstance to your recent experience.  A post mortem revealed a hole in the in the inner plastic (bag) membrane which supported Iain's (BrewArt Team) theory of a perforated keg liner and subsequent infection. The hole was near the neck of the keg liner.  What caused the hole remains a mystery to me. 

I fully support your suggestion of collecting information concerning keg liners that produce froth and I would urge others to conduct a post-mortem on offending liners and taking photographs.  I certainly will be from now on.

[Pursya]

I'm now prepared to make a recommendation on the Brewflow.

Don't buy it.

Does not give you the perfect pour no matter what you do.

I would be happy with four out of five pours being acceptable, and a 20% fail rate is extremely generous.

But  I simply cannot get a one out of fifty perfect pour. Despite following everything to the letter. Despite trying a keg in the main refrigerator for a week before putting in the flo. Despite at least five weeks secondary.

The cost of the flow and the cost of the kegs and liners have pushed out beyond $2,500. For a system that you cannot just invite mates around and use with any confidence.

Bitterley disappointed.

[Gibbo]

Pursya, Talk to the Brewart Techs. They may be able to help you out.

Like you, I have followed all the instructions and I am certainly not new to brewing.

I have a new set of kegs and I am back to square one of my assessment phase. So far, I have seen better results.

[Pursya]

Hi Gibbo.

I leave for work at 6:30 am.

Get home just after 5pm.

Five days a week.

And 7-2 every third Saturday.

I don't have time to talk to techs during business hour that they are available.

As this is the "official" site I half expected the techs to become involved in the discussions. Because I'm more than sure I'm not the only one with this issue.

If I'm doing something wrong, then I'm not the only one, and surely engagement by the techs here would help with several people's issues, and save them time on the phones.

[Gibbo]

Pursya, I hear your frustration mate. 

If you want your money back or you want to solve an issue you have, you have to contact them.

Have you tried emailing?

 

[Pursya]

Ah, I'm not so petty to be stamping my feet asking for a refund.

As I said, would be great if the team actually used the "official" forum as a support platform.

Not unusual for big companies to do so.

Right now, I'm getting better support from https://www.justbrewart.com.au/. An unofficial site.

And I know that I'm not on my own with this issue, so I expect a community solution makes economic sense for a company that pays for a support team.

Anyway I'm invested in this, not just financially. I want to see it through.

[Gibbo]

Just did half keg, half bottle for a bavarian lager. The keg filled really well, but I did notice the finished brew was a little gassy. I think this is due to coming up from 12 degrees to 18 degrees. We will see how it pours in a few more weeks.

I am also going to half keg and half bottle a can of mexican cerveza tomorrow. This will be a good test to see if non-brewprints can hold up to a kegging. This one brewed at 20 degrees, so I am anticipating that the lager wont be gassy like the bavarian.

I have had gassy brews before and they have certainly finished fermenting though it always made it a pain to read the hydrometer.

Out of bottles these brews will pour just fine.

I am toying with the idea of kegging at lower temperatures too. This will be my next test for the next brew.

 

[Big Pop]

On 7Apl17 I tried my first Mountian Range IPA keg after 31 days conditioning in the beerflo which resulted in 3 or 4 glasses of 100% froth. It promptly went back on the shelf.  Tonight I reintroduced the same keg to the BeerFlo following 52 days conditioning with much more pleasing results. Poured well - gooooood beer.

[Pursya]

Pizza a bit raw mate.

Beer looks amazing.

[Darren Jones]

Just tried the California steamer (5 weeks secondary) and it poured beautifully. I didn't do anything different compared to the last two kegs ( a premium lager and birra italiano) in the brewflo apart from 2 weeks longer storage. The mystery of the brewflo continues. 

[Pursya]

17 hours ago, Darren Jones said:

Just tried the California steamer (5 weeks secondary) and it poured beautifully. I didn't do anything different compared to the last two kegs ( a premium lager and birra italiano) in the brewflo apart from 2 weeks longer storage. The mystery of the brewflo continues. 

Can you remember adding the primer to the kegs?

Did it flow in easily or did you have to slow your injection?

Because I'm feeling like others in believing the filter in the liner may be the issue.

[Peter Rundle-Curry]

I have a response from the tech team as follows:

"At present you are correct in that sometimes the keg liner can cause issues with the pressure build-up hence causing further difficulty when attempting to pour. We are working with our keg liner manufacturers to rectify this issue. We’ve found that there might be a best practice method to connecting the liner to the keg cap, we hope to have this tested and communicated to the BrewArt community in due course. 

 

I can assure you we are investigating the foaming issue intensely and hope to produce a solution that resolves this issue.

 

I have flagged our conversation and have passed this on my manager to ensure you are updated with the progression of our testing outcomes"

 

I will keep everyone in the loop

 

Pete

[Peter Rundle-Curry]

I just preformed a full autopsy on the liner and I think I have found the issue, the liner actually has an inner bladder, when you look in the top you can see a channeled gauze.  When pressure builds up in the liner the flap of the gauze is pressed hard against the throat thus restricting the flow to only a small gap (less than 1mm).  The brew is then forced through the gap and is atomised hence froth..

Pete

[Paddy]

I have so far had 8 kegs out of the BeerFlo with the only problem being the Irish Red, both all head. Seems like a consistent problem with the Red, just had another brew print delivered for the Red so will give it another go.

[Dean Buchanan]

Was having a chat with the owner of the local Home Brew shop & telling him about issues we are having when kegging. He was of the opinion that getting all head from a pour out of a keg would lead him to believe 1 of 2 possible issues. 1. The beer had not finished Primary Fermentation before kegging or 2. Too much primer being added. 

When I told him though that the same brews (bottled) when half kegged & half bottled didn't have any issues out of the bottle then he said maybe to try less primer in the kegs. 

 

[Gibbo]

My Bavarian test bottle (after just over 3 weeks) has poured well. I toyed with the idea of trying the keg, but will leave that for atleast another week. Beer was slightly too effervescent, however the taste reminded me of Becks.

In two weeks I will test out the can-in-a-keg and the Bavarian and report back.

Of most interest here is the possibility of the keg liners being at fault. 

On 2017-5-2 at 6:53 AM, Peter Rundle-Curry said:

I just preformed a full autopsy on the liner and I think I have found the issue, the liner actually has an inner bladder, when you look in the top you can see a channeled gauze.  When pressure builds up in the liner the flap of the gauze is pressed hard against the throat thus restricting the flow to only a small gap (less than 1mm).  The brew is then forced through the gap and is atomised hence froth..

Pete

Pete, Do you know exactly what purpose the gauze has in the operation of the keg? Do you think popping a few larger holes through it would improve beer flow?

[Peter Rundle-Curry]

Gibbo

It looks as if the gauze is meant to be a filter, but when you examine it it's made up of a series of 1mm plastic channels attached to a plastic flap.  I can see that if the beer is a bit effervescent like the Bavarian gets, the pressure will force the flap upwards and even bend off the channels, making it into a non-return valve.  Unfortunately it is difficult to mess with as it flaps down too easy and you may end up piercing the bag..

The tech team have gone pretty quiet, they promised to replace two keg kits and a brew kit but nothing came of it.  To be honest I just hope they rectify the design as I hate wasting good beer!

 

Pete

 

[Pursya]

I have to say that the last couple of kegs have been pretty good.

Certinly not perfect, but not bad.

As these were the second kegs of two varieties, plus a one third MountainIPA that I had taken out of the flow.

Best I can determine that has improved the flow, is the longer secondary fermentation.

I believe that 6 weeks secondary if preferable to the recommended 2 weeks. I think that BrewArt arrived at the 2 week formula by having their brews in a completely controlled environment. Not real world.

[Gibbo]

Just tried my Bavarian at 4.5 weeks - All head.

Have taken it out of the flow and back into the cupboard for a while longer.

Cerveza out of a can will be tried next weekend.

 

[Gibbo]

Cerveza out of a can produced 50/50 results. That is to say half a glass of head and half beer. 

Strong banana notes and quite enjoyable.

Certainly better result than the Bavarian, however still not good enough. Out of the flow and back into the cupboard.

[MattS]

Bombshell Blonde pours 80/20 - that's 80% head and 20% beer. If you let it sit for a minute or two then come back and top it up (do this a few times) you eventually get a nicely poured beer with a nice white head. Interestingly there are moments during the pour when you can see beer coming out of the tap, but most of the time it is "foam". The keg line doesn't have any apparent bubbles in it. Oh well, at least it comes good after a bit of fiddling. Tastes great.

[MattS]

And now the Bombshell Blonde is no more ? - it went down well. Even friends liked it. Have now got an Irish Red Ale in the BrewFlo. This one pours perfectly. Absolutely great. Only had 2 weeks conditioning at 20C and 2 days in the fridge at ~3C then into the BrewFlo. It is definitely the frustration of the pouring lottery that is giving everyone the dirts. You just don't know what sort of pour you are going to get.

Interestingly, when I tried to remove the liner from the dead keg of Bombshell Blonde I had to give it a real good pull to get it out. It displayed signs of still being partially inflated even after all the air and contents had been let out. I was a bit skeptical about the liner issue that has been discussed on this forum but I am now included to give that theory some air (pun?) as it seems the only logical reason why the liner was still partially inflated when all the valves etc had been removed.

[Pursya]

I've had issues removing liners as well.

As you say, no liquid but definately something in there.

just put in a 4 1/2 week old US Chiller. Nice brew. Having trouble retaining head.

[Gibbo]

On 2017-5-28 at 0:34 PM, Gibbo said:

Cerveza out of a can produced 50/50 results. That is to say half a glass of head and half beer. 

Strong banana notes and quite enjoyable.

Certainly better result than the Bavarian, however still not good enough. Out of the flow and back into the cupboard.

So 57 days total after kegging and pulling it out of the cupboard for another waltz, the results are agreeable. Getting about half an inch too much head for my liking, but that is a minor concern. Effervescence is not over the top and the flavour is quite pronounced. Probably due to using a whole can for a 10L batch. ABV is anyone's guess but this sure aint mid-strength ?