*Newbie alert*

[bigmacca]

Hey guys,
So I've decided to keg my beer rather than bottle so I've scored myself a keg, bottle and beer gun. Brewed a few beers and keged them but I am having issues getting carbonation right. 1st beer I kegged and gassed in the fridge at 10-12 psi. After about a week and a half had a beer which had so much head a no fiz in the beer after about a month nothing changed? Lots of head no fiz in beer no mater what psi I served at.

Next beer I cold crushed kegged and force carbonated and 40 psi. Left overnight a serving pressure 10-12 psi now trying the beer it is still flat with lots of head. Beer sprays out of the beer gun rather than pores if I drop the pressure down to 1-2 psi I get a nice pore but no real gas in the beer.

My hose on the gun is what the brew shop recommended and is about 2 meters long. Fridge temp is about 3 degrees.

What am I doing wrong?
Is it possible my pressure gauge is wrong?

Cheers macca

 

[Yob]

line length could ne an issue, depends on the diameter of the line. If its pouring with head it sounds carbed. Check out the wikki's for balancing a keg system mate.

 

[Yob]

>HERE< is a good starting point if you didnt find it mate

 

[thedragon]

Have a look at these too:

http://www.kegking.com.au/faq.html
http://www.kegking.com.au/balancing%20your%20keg%20system.html

I found that these links helped my when trying to work out my serving pressure, temperature, line length and line internal diameter.

There's also a bunch of other things that can affect the way your beer pours. From my experience this includes:
* using cheap disconnects (see the cheap disconnect thread that's currently popular)
* 1/2 frozen beer lines
* force carbonating and stuffing it up, over carbonating.

This link is a great guide that should help you better force carb:

http://www.kegking.com.au/Force%20Carbonating%20Your%20Beer.htm

Sorry, there's no silver bullet. Each setup is different, and from my experience, a bit of erasing and trial and error will help you balance your set up.

It is frustrating, but it is worth it.

 

[bigmacca]

Thanks for the reply guys!! I think the issue is that my outlet line is to short last night a pinched in a couple of places and adjusted the reg till I got a good flow which was about 12 psi. The beer came out great! Thanks again

 

[Jkpentreath]

Had the same thing had on my first, the lady at beer belly reckoned I had over carbed it. So I back off the gas. It pours slower. But is spot on. I have 5 metres of beer line in fridge, a bloke the other day was adamant I needed ten. But I think that was if the keg was out of the fridge maybe, not to stop air. Good luck.

 

[manticle]

10 metres of beer line? I'm no kegging expert (been doing it maybe 3 months) but I'd seriously question that.

I have 2 and while all systems are different, 10 seems crazy. I'd have the keg in the garage and be pouring beer in the bathroom.

 

[bigmacca]

Gee 10 meters that's a lot of pipe. I guess it's abit of a play off between length and diameter haha na I've found that clamping the line slightly allows me to keep the keg pressure up and the hose length short. I'm not sure if this is common practice but so far it's working for me

 

[thedragon]

Ten meters sounds like a lot for a home set up. Certainly not out of the question, but I'd be surprised.

Check out the second link that I've included in post 4. It'll help explain the impact of different kegging factors on your pour.

 

[SerLung]

An aussie guy went on a cruise out of Sydney, 3 hours into the cruise he got to thinking, called a crew member over and asked "does the ship generate its own electricity"? The crew member replied, no sir, please take a look out the back of the ship, you'll see a very long extension cord running back to Fort Denison.

Moral of the story: some long cables are not needed.