Excessive foaming with GW Kent Sparkling Bottle Filler... only on pre-packaged beer?

[mysterybrewing]

I need some input. We have one of the 4-head manual fillers from GW Kent. This guy:

http://www.gwkent.com/4-spout-sparkling-filling-machine.html

For the most part, it works really well if slow and labor intensive.

However, we've been running into this problem where if we're filling from kegs that have been in the cooler for a while we have a problem with the bottles getting over-pressurized and beer gushes out of the bottle when we remove it from the machine, leaving about a half a bottle of foam. It doesn't happen if we're coming straight from brite, or if we're coming out of a keg that was packaged within the past day or so, only on stuff that has been packaged for a couple of days or longer.

It's not like we can't bottle, but it's slower and we're wasting more beer. We can strive to always package fresh or always from brite, but it essentially means that we can't get ahead of production when it comes to bottles.

Thoughts? The temperature in our cooler is exactly the same was the temperature in brite, I can't imagine that there's a pressure difference in freshly packaged kegs vs 48-hour packaged kegs, and temperature and dissolved CO2 is mainly waht I'm thinking about when it comes to excessive foaming. We're kind of at a loss on this.

Thanks,
Erik

[callmetim]

could be pressure is too low going into the keg so you are getting out-gassing in the line.

[mysterybrewing]

But why would it be fine immediately and breaking out two days later?

[Guestimate]

What temperature is the beer in the brite tank? What temperature is your cooler? Sounds like the beer is too warm for bottle filling. What PSI are you pushing with in the brite tank? What PSI are you pushing with in the keg? If your PSI is too high, the bottle might not be able to snift to atmospheric pressure properly. The PSI issue would not explain why they won't fill after two days, but the temperature in the cooler would.

Kevin

[mysterybrewing]

We're going from 38F to 38F. Agreed, I expect foam in a temperature rise, but we can usually accommodate for that by regulating pressure a little.

[Gunrunner]

We use same filler and have to problems from kegs. Sounds like head pressure on keg is too low.

[Guestimate]

Is your brite tank glycol jacketed or is it cooled in the same room as the kegs? It is difficult to bottle at 38 degrees. I still suspect kegs are slightly warmer than the brite tank. Even just a couple degrees can make a huge difference. You will need very good control of your carbonation levels and your counter pressures to bottle at 38 degrees. If at all possible, try to lower the temperature. A keg is small tank with little head space, so your pressures could swing quickly.

Kevin