I must be doing something wrong w/ my kegs...

I now have 4 kegs, and every one has been a pain and none of them seem to turn out right...please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Usually I put my keg w/ fresh beer in the cooler and let it drop down to fridge temp. I hook it up to the CO2 canister and shake it around 25psi once the keg and beer is cold. After a minute or two of shaking, I put it back in the fridge w/ the CO2 still connected at 25psi. The next morning I drop the pressure to 5psi. Usually I get a cup or two of foam and then get a decent flow--but the beer usually tastes like garbage.

The two older beers that have been on the system for a couple weeks (sitting at 5psi--my serving pressure) seem to be a little flat...but tasted much better after a couple of weeks at sitting at serving pressure.

Any suggestions? I have a big party this weekend and want to have all 4 of my kegs serving at the right carbonation level (I have a 4-way gas manifold splitting a blonde ale, vienna lager, am. wheat beer, and pale ale). Another obstacle is that I have run out of CO2- and won't be able to put these beers on gas until Wednesday night (Party is Friday night). Help?

I force carb with the crank-and-shake method, and I don't feel that it negatively impacts my beers. The first few pints are going to taste like crap depending on how much yeast you have settling out in the keg, but that's independent of carb method.

Some people claim that once force carbed, it will taste a little off for a couple of days - there may be some truth to this, as CO2 does get stored as a combination of dissolved gas and carbonic acid, so it could take a while for the level of carbonic acid to reach a stable level - but I don't know for sure. Either way, after it's been sitting for a couple of days, it shouldn't matter what method you used to carbonate it in the first place.

As far as taste goes, kegging should not change it much at all so I must assume that either too much trub is being racked into the keg or the beer is still green. For foam though, you need to ensure you have a properly balanced system.This is a very easy yet often time ignored first step in setting up your kegerator. The math is simple and takes very few steps or measurements to resolve. I will assume that you are ok with standard beer carbonation. If you want multiple beer carb levels then you will need multiple regulators and multiple line lengths to keep foam free pouring. 12 psi is kind of the generic perfect pressure for most systems.

Regulator Pressure = (Length of Beer Line in Feet x Resistance of beer line) + (Heights of tap above kegs x 0.5)


Beer line resistance:

3/16 id is 2.7
1/4 id is 0.7


Common example:

5' of 3/16" hose and the tap is 2' above the keg.

Pressure at regulator should equal (5 x 2.7) + (2 x .5)
13.5 + 1 = 14 psi. Since 14 is a bit high, I would rather go back and decrease the hose length to hit the 12 psi mark.

4' of 3/16 will change it to:
4 x 2.7 + 2 x .5 = 11.8 or round that to 12.

So for this weekend coming up-- let's assume my kegs are all ****ed up. What do ya'll suggest doing? Also, for the next few weeks I won't be changing my serving lines...any suggestion on how to get that good for just a 3-4 foot long line?

5 psi is really low and I would expect your beer to taste a little flat. I would set your pressure 11-12 and let it sit for the rest of the week.

Use the directions here.

Stevorino said:

So for this weekend coming up-- let's assume my kegs are all ****ed up. What do ya'll suggest doing? Also, for the next few weeks I won't be changing my serving lines...any suggestion on how to get that good for just a 3-4 foot long line?

Click to expand...

Either I need more info or you need to do the calculations. Exactly how long is your line, exactly what ID is your line, exactly how high over the keg do you serve?

Regulator Pressure = (Length of Beer Line in Feet x Resistance of beer line) + (Heights of tap above kegs x 0.5)

Well to use your current system you need to let the beer sit at 12 PSI, when you want to serve some, drop the PSI to 5 and serve at that pressure (thus avoiding foam mostly). Do get longer lines when you get the chance though so you don't have to always keep dropping to 5 PSI to pull a pint, then back to 12 for storage.

The kegs that you have had for a while that have aged a bit should work fine with the above method, nothing is going to make green beer taste like aged beer though.

Now for having beer at your party if you figure all your kegs are currently screwed up, I'd just go buy a sankey keg of something good from a local microbrew and retrofit that into your system. (alternatively they may fill a 5 gal corny)

If my kegs are all carbonated at around 5psi or higher, and I let it sit at 12psi from Wednesday Night to Friday night, do ya'll think they will be good to go?

The two new ales just got out of sitting in a primary at 68 degrees for 4 weeks.

The new ales will not be ready regardless of what you do, green beer is green beer. Carbonated is not conditioned. (A wheat might be ok after 4 weeks).

The other two, I'd raise the pressure to 12 psi now and drop it for the party.

My 2cents says that setting to 12psi right now MIGHT get your beer up to an acceptable carb level by Friday night but certainly not in 48 hours. I would hit them with 30psi on Wed night, shake until no more gas goes in, then let it sit until the morning at 30psi (about 8-10 hours at that pressure). Then turn it back to 12psi and leave it alone until the party. Then purge it down to 5-6psi for serving.

Everyone is right though, aging happens through time and it just so happens that bottle conditioned beer ends up being aged to the bare minimum just as it fully carbs. In kegging, restraint must be self inflicted.

The Best Bitter I just brewed on 4/6/08 JUST started tasting right and it's been in the keg for 5 weeks.

Maybe you should try hooking the keg up to CO2 at serving pressure and letting it sit for a week, rather than shaking it...see if there's a difference.

It sounds like he's open for that idea but in a pinch for this coming weekend. Leaving it at serving pressure at this point is going to leave flat beer.

I have a theory as to why beer seems to go down hill in taste temporarily just after carbing it. First, the traditional idea is that some carbonic acid is formed in the process which eventually dissipates.. I buy that. I also think carbonation tends to accentuate certain flavors in a beer and that includes that "green" flavor.