Beer Wont Carb

[buttersd70]

What shoudl happen is if you vent the pressure, off the gas entirely, the co2 released from suspension will drive the pressure up again....then it is vented again, etc. Its one of those cases where you need to come in under your target, and rise up to it. The colder the beer, the longer the process takes, because you are trying to get co2 to come out of solution.

If it's been weeks, though, and the pressure hasn't risen on its own, then it should actually be ok.....but, given the ongoing problems, the first thing I would do, if venting over a couple of days didn't work: start from scratch. I would take it out of the fridge, let it get to ambient temp, then vent it, totally and completely. over the course of a day or 2. Completely 100% de-carb the bugger, and start the carbonation process all over again.

Then I would put it in the fridge until cold. Then connect the gas at 80kp, and shake the ******* (assuming you have a non return fitting. Beware if you don't. ) Shake the shit out of it for half an hour. Then put it back in the fridge. 24-48hrs later, you have perfect carbonation. no chance at all of overcarbing it, because the reg never gets moved off serving pressure. Depending on your shaking, it will either be slightly under carbed, or perfect, when it goes back into the fridge. After 48hrs, any under carbing is fixed anyway.

Simple fact is, overcarbing is a bugger to fix. Its fiddly. It involves judgement. Undercarbing on the other hand, is easy to fix....nothing is required apart from more time. Either way, once you are confident that the pressure is right for the temperature to give you the correct volumes of CO2, any other issues with the pour are related entirely to the line and tap.....the pressure and the level of carbonation have now been made constant, instead of variable, and can be removed as possible causes entirely. Once this is done, you can then concentrate on fine tuning the tap and line. And once this has been set, using a keg that has been 'set and forget' or 'shake at dispensing pressure then sit', you know it's right....so any subsequent kegs can be force carbed using a different method.....and if you have any por problems, you know its not the line/tap. It must be the carbonation level. makes diagnosing easy. The hardest thing about diagnosing, is that there are so many variables.....turn some of those variables in to constants, and it makes life a lot easier.

 

[raven19]

Open up the relief valve & leave the keg to warm up outside of the fridge over night. The warming beer will release CO2 much more rapidly.
Tomorrow, put the keg back in the fridge to cool - Once cool, close the relief valve, gas to 70kpa & pour - should be fine, but if still over gassed repeat as necessary.

+1. My first keg was overcarbed too.

Also give those keg posts a good look over. I had similar issues with one keg needing post seals replacing, since then it has been fine. In my case air was getting into the line between keg and tap...

Best of luck.

 

[EVOSTi]

thanks for the detailed replies guys.

ill read over these again when im home so i have more time to digest the info. but it seems like a good idea to take it out of the fridge and recarb. i didnt want to take it out as the beer has come up quite clear over time but id rather have good tasting beer

 

[st3v3]

...the guy at the HBS said 10kpa was right (i asked if he mean psi but no) which seems very low but like i said i dont think hes all there...

Not doubting your judgement of the guy at the HBS, but I use one of those plastic "picnic taps" with only an inch or two of hose between the disconnect and the tap, and have found that 10kpa or less is the perfect pouring pressure for me.
I had been thinking my beer was overcarbed when trying to pour at 60-100kpa as usually recommended, and getting 90% head in my glass. Once I adjusted the pressure to suit my tap and line, everything was great. (I carb at about 240kpa over about 2-3 days, and that seems to do the trick for me)

st3v3

 

[Ross]

thanks for the detailed replies guys.

ill read over these again when im home so i have more time to digest the info. but it seems like a good idea to take it out of the fridge and recarb. i didnt want to take it out as the beer has come up quite clear over time but id rather have good tasting beer

Taking your keg out the fridge overnight is not going to stir up your yeast - All will be good.

cheers ross

 

[EVOSTi]

i just got home and turns out i wont need to take the keg out of the fridge to warm it up

i walked into the garage to grab a beer from the fridge after a hot days work and its kaput. beer is still cold enough to drink but the fridge is dead. on one hand the fridge was free but i will now need to get another one which most likely wont be. and it was a good size too

anyone got a cheap fridge going?

 

[MarkBastard]

I have my kegs in a chest freezer with a fridgemate running at 4 degrees. I have the temp probe just dangling on the inside above the compressor hump, about half way down.

I find that I need to run my reg at 50kpa.

I dunno if that means the liquid inside my kegs is actually lower than 4 degrees. It could well be because I have no fan inside the chest freezer and my temp prob is probably in one of the hotter parts of the freezer, but it all seems to work well for me either way so I'm not concerned.

I initially ran it at 100kpa but this over carbed the kegs and I was having the same problem as you. Worked it out because the first beer was usually the best, due to it being made up of beer that was sitting in beer line, which allowed a lot of the gas to seep out of the beer and sit by itself in pockets.

Reducing / lengthening the beer lines is above slowing down the flow of beer isn't it? So you should only lengthen beer line if you find it's shooting out too fast and this is causing too much head on an otherwise properly carbed beer.

My original beer line was also too long, I like having a shorter one because there's no gas pockets and it's much more manageable! The 4mm ID black line that Ross recommended is much better for picnic taps than the 5mm ID clear stuff in every way. I have about a meter of it and it's perfect and way better than 2.5m of the clear stuff.