Undercarbonated Kegs

Hi,

I am fairly new to kegging (only drinking my second kegged batch) & both seemed undercarbonated, even though I set everything based on the charts available for style/temp/psi.

Right now, I have a APA tapped at about 12psi & around 38 degrees, but after about 10 days now it seems undercarbonated, like my last batch a Cali Common. There is plenty of head (about 2 inches worth), but the CO2 in suspension seems weak. When I first pour, I am only seeing a minimal amount of bubbles surfacing. I would have expected more in suspension carbonation at this point.

I'm not really sure where to go from here as I thought I was following the guidelines I've read about. Does anyone have any ideas to help this? I have a pilsner conditioning & I definitely don't want this issue with that one. You can get away with an undercarbonated APA, but not so for a pilsner....

Thanks for any advice you all may have!

Just crank up the pressure if it's too low for your tastes. Thats the beauty of a keg.

However, if you are just setting it and letting it carb slowly, it may take more like 2-3 weeks. It just may not be fully carbed yet. 10 days simply may not be enough time.

I crank mine up to about 30psi, let it sit for about 3 days, then set it to my serving pressure and give it another week or so to even out. Thats 10 days right there.

Some people crank it up to about 30 and shake the keg around for a few minutes, then drop the pressure and let it even out.

Long story short, at 10 days, it's probably not finished carbing yet. And if it's not carbed enough for you, you can always add more.

Ok, I'll try that. I did try that on the Cali Common but just resulted in more head - almost 1/2 a glass. Do you mean crank it up & leave it for a few days, then drop back down for serving? Or crank up & serve? Love it to be drinkable sooner rather than later. Well, its already drinkable, just would rather a bit more carbonation....

Thanks!

You're just expecting 20 or so days of carbonation to happen in 10 days. You can either wait another week minimum or crank the pressure to like 16psi for a few more days and then drop it back down to 12.

Ok, thanks. I thought kegging was quicker to serving than bottling, but I guess not. When bottling, I'm carbonated in 7+ days, not 21+ days. Bottling seems more user friendly & quicker to serve. Switching back!

Once your beer has properly carbed, if you're still getting too much foam at your serving pressure, you need to get longer tap lines. It is important that the system is in 'balance' meaning that the tap lines provide enough resistance to counter the pressure pushing the beer out.

Quick fix = hold the tap higher (if you are using picnic taps), as in, above your head. gravity will provide the back pressure.

It can be faster. As stated earlier, when you hook up a new keg to the gas, crank it up to 30 psi for about 3-4 days, then drop it back down to your serving pressure and give it another 3-4 days to even out. Carbed in week.

You can carb in as little as 5 min by hooking up the gas, cranking it up to 30 or so, and shaking or rolling the keg back and forth for about 5 minutes. I don't recommend this though because I think the texture and taste are not quite right. 'fizzy' and 'carbonic'. It will mellow out over time though.

jmd1971 said:

Ok, thanks. I thought kegging was quicker to serving than bottling, but I guess not. When bottling, I'm carbonated in 7+ days, not 21+ days. Bottling seems more user friendly & quicker to serve. Switching back!

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Don't knock it till you know what you're doing.

I've only kegged 2 batches and I'm trying to get the procedure down as well as both my batches took longer than 2 weeks to fully carbonate. Don't give up, regardless of time it's much less of a pain in the ass than bottling!

Thanks for the advice, Alphonso. Kind of funny on the tap line size. It seems everyone says 5-7 ft of line is ideal, yet the standard tower taps sold on the market only have 3-4 feet. Wonder why they wouldn't come with the right sized line? I hear its kind of a pain to change the line in tower taps....

FWIW - Mine take about a week to get decent carbonation but 3 weeks to get a nice fine head and maximum carbonation at 12 psi. I never bump the psi up unless I have a need to finish it early. I just feel better about letting nature taking its course and my beers always seem much better three weeks after kegging anyways.

Brett3rThanU said:

I've only kegged 2 batches and I'm trying to get the procedure down as well as both my batches took longer than 2 weeks to fully carbonate. Don't give up, regardless of time it's much less of a pain in the ass than bottling!

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I've only kegged 3 & 1 was a disaster! Never, ever dry hop directly into the carboy with no bag. BIIIIIG mistake. I've aptly named my pale ale, "Particulate Pale Ale". Racking gunked up the posts, poppets, etc. & had to switch to racking directly into the lid. Then serving has been.....interesting to say the least. I'm actually getting used to hop particles in my pale ale! :cross:

jmd1971 said:

Thanks for the advice, Alphonso. Kind of funny on the tap line size. It seems everyone says 5-7 ft of line is ideal, yet the standard tower taps sold on the market only have 3-4 feet. Wonder why they wouldn't come with the right sized line? I hear its kind of a pain to change the line in tower taps....

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Yeah, its funny how that seems to be the going size, I found that 5-7ft is still to short for me. I run 10ft of 3/16 line for anything over 10 psi.

I promise you that there is still another length of line going from the kegs to the tower lines to properly balance the system, coiled up in the fridge somewhere. Unless some sort of choker line is employed. Conversely, with a tower, 5ft of line may be enough if the level of dispense is high enough above the keg to provide the necessary back pressure (due to gravity).

It all comes down to balancing your system. Its a function of resistance to flow from the tubing or any fittings employed, the lift (hight beer needs to be pushed to), temperature, and the pressure.

Bars have the opposite problem we do. For long draw systems, they employ larger diameter lower resistance lines, and frequently still need to run higher pressures to get the beer to the tap which necessitates blended gas to maintain the correct carbonation level in the keg.

jmd1971 said:

I've only kegged 3 & 1 was a disaster! Never, ever dry hop directly into the carboy with no bag. BIIIIIG mistake. I've aptly named my pale ale, "Particulate Pale Ale". Racking gunked up the posts, poppets, etc. & had to switch to racking directly into the lid. Then serving has been.....interesting to say the least. I'm actually getting used to hop particles in my pale ale! :cross:

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Ha, yeah, been there. I just pretended they were flavor crystals. Adventures in homebrewing

I don't know why there's a misconception that kegging is a magic bullet. There are plenty of advantages, but fixing impatience isn't one of them. Sure, you can boost carb a beer in the keg in 30 minutes. It will taste mediocre due to the initial carbonic bite, you won't know exactly how much co2 you have in there, and it will be green (i.e. young) if you just racked out of the primary.

If your beer is decently aged already in primary (and maybe secondary), you can push the process ahead a bit by leaving it at 30 psi for 24 hours as many people do. It's a reasonable compromise between a true set and forget process and a "gotta have it tomorrow" boost carb. Just don't blame us when your last pint is awesome and then you blow foam.

OK, I just picked up 6+ feet of new tubing. I have a converted freezer with a tower so I am hoping the additional line helps with the foaming issues I've been having.

Of course I read Alphonso's post re: the 10+ feet of line AFTER I picked up the 6+ feet. Oh well - guess I'll try the 6+ feet & see if that helps. I usually have the pressure around 13ish & the tower is on top of the freezer lid so probably about 2.5+ feet above the top of the keg.

Fingers crossed! I'll get this sorted out one way or another!

jmd1971 said:

OK, I just picked up 6+ feet of new tubing. I have a converted freezer with a tower so I am hoping the additional line helps with the foaming issues I've been having.

Of course I read Alphonso's post re: the 10+ feet of line AFTER I picked up the 6+ feet. Oh well - guess I'll try the 6+ feet & see if that helps. I usually have the pressure around 13ish & the tower is on top of the freezer lid so probably about 2.5+ feet above the top of the keg.

Fingers crossed! I'll get this sorted out one way or another!

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Yes, I would recommend more like 10', because you can cut it down to 8' if you want but you can't make it longer! I finally changed all of my lines to 10' serving lines and I'm very happy with it. With a too-long line, all that can happen is a slower pour. But that hasn't happened to me, so I've been really happy with the longer lines.

Just went back & got 10' line. Wish me luck!

If you have a tap tower, the faucet, shank, tailpiece, and even the top few inches of tubing get warm when they haven't dispense a beer in a while. So the first pour is half warm beer which foams like crazy. But that first pour cools the tubing, tailpiece, shank, and faucet down, so subsequent pours (within a couple hours) don't foam up as much.

The only solution to that is to either accept it, or devise a way to cool down the aformentioned parts. Some people use a small PC fan to circulate cool air up into the tower.

jmd1971 said:

Just went back & got 10' line. Wish me luck!

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Good luck!

AZOTH99 said:

great thread I learned something here for sure. I just moved to Kegging and have done 2. Now my question comes in. My first beer always has a super amount of head like 80% 20% beer. So I bumped down my PSI and it mellowed it out. Now 1 month later I kegged my second batch. 30psi for 24 hours then 20psi for 24. The head is o.k. is but not great at all. I bumped the PSI back up to almost 10 and it got better. So now I have the delema of one gets to much head the other not enough. Will this all end up evening out as the second keg gets more carbonated properly? The second one has been in the keg now for this weekend will be 2 weeks.

Sounds like what I need to do is make a longer line for both kegs and pump my PSI back up to around 10-13ish. is this correct?


Also I wanted to note on here that Yes the longer it sits definatly the better it tastes. At first my beer tasted better flat out of the secondary and I almost thought about tossing it. Glad I didn't cause each night it definatly tasted alot better. I haven't tried it in about 4 days now. I'm talking about my second beer here. Haven't even poured a glass of the first one since the second has been made. man what to do what to do. Guess I'll have to go back to that one for a while.

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Owwww my eyes. Can you get rid of the bright blue font? That'd make it 100 times easier for me to read.

I didn't read it all, but instead of using higher pressure to start, maybe try just using 12 psi all the time. It'll take about 2 weeks to carb up, but then you can keep all the kegs on the same pressure and not turn them off/down/up and mess with the balancing.

O.k. dark blue it is. Sorry just can't do black like everyone else. Something in my just has to be a little different, always been that way.

So I got home tried my brew. They definatly are getting better with age. Bumped my PSI to 13ish and my Chimay is pouring fine, the Amber is still All head with 2-5% beer? even when I put the tap way up as high as I can guess I'll just have to go the 10Ft route. sucks I suppose. when I go to 5psi the amber pours pretty decent? If it's overcarbonated will it eventually mellow out some or am I just going to have to deal with alot of head from that beer?

Yooper said:

Owwww my eyes. Can you get rid of the bright blue font? That'd make it 100 times easier for me to read.

I didn't read it all, but instead of using higher pressure to start, maybe try just using 12 psi all the time. It'll take about 2 weeks to carb up, but then you can keep all the kegs on the same pressure and not turn them off/down/up and mess with the balancing.

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AZOTH99 said:

Bump for my question?


As I was home yesterday I checked. Same, same, Amber is still pours 90-95% head or more. Chimay clone pours just fine. The hose is probably about 8 ft long on the amber, I held it up almost to the celing poured really slow and it did fine I suppose. Why is that? one beer pours fine the other not so much? Anyone[/I]

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Maybe it's more highly carbed? Maybe there is a very small piece of debris in the black QD or on the poppit? I don't know, really. But it's probably likely that it's got a bit more co2 in it, and it's getting "knocked out" somewhere along the way.