Over carbed my beer...

So I recently purchased a dual keg/regulator kit from MWS. I kegged my first beer and turned it up to 30 psi over night. It wasn't quite like I wanted it, so I turned it down to 20 and left it over night again. The next day it was carbed just about right, so I turned it down to 8 psi, and left it. That was a week ago. Tonight I went to pour a beer and it was all foam! I checked the regulator and it had turned itself up to 20 psi!! Now all I get is foam. Anyone else had this exprience with a kit from MWS? The regulator appears to be pretty cheaply made. What do I do to reduce the level of carbonation in my beer?

Shut off the gas and start burping the keg head space until you tame the beast. Could take a couple of days...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

Shut off the gas and start burping the keg head space until you tame the beast. Could take a couple of days...

Cheers!

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Ok, I'll give that a try! So just keep burping it until it won't burp anymore, then return to the pressure that I want?

Keep burping it until you can pour a pint that looks as good as it tastes. Put just a few PSI on the keg during testing to get the beer to pour, and if it's still foamy, shut the gas back off and keep burping the keg...

Cheers!

In the future just set your keg to serving pressure and leave it be for about 2 weeks. It will carbonate just fine.

Thanks for the tips! I think I'm definitely done with the burst carbing method!

Bluelinebrewer said:

Thanks for the tips! I think I'm definitely done with the burst carbing method!

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I have never been satisfied trying it. I find that 2-3 weeks at serving pressure is perfect. It helps that I always have another keg on tap.

I tried my cream ale that is 1.5 weeks at serving pressure tonight. It's definitely drinkable, but not as good as it will be next week.

forstmeister said:

I have never been satisfied trying it. I find that 2-3 weeks at serving pressure is perfect. It helps that I always have another keg on tap.

I tried my cream ale that is 1.5 weeks at serving pressure tonight. It's definitely drinkable, but not as good as it will be next week.

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Yeah.. I think I was just anxious to try out the new equipment! but, lesson learned. I should've known, nothing about homebrewing is fast!!

Just to clarify..... you vent the keg. Let it sit there for several hours. That will give time for some of the CO2 to come out of solution and build up more pressure. Vent again. Repeat. You need to wait between "burps" or you won't significantly decarb the beer.

Personally, I think a combo method of carbing works great. Set it to 30 psi overnight. Then, turn down to serving pressure. It probably won't be perfect at 1 day, but it will be decent and then slowly come up to equilibrium. It avoids the overcarbing issue but cuts many days off of the "slow carb" method.

billl said:

Just to clarify..... you vent the keg. Let it sit there for several hours. That will give time for some of the CO2 to come out of solution and build up more pressure. Vent again. Repeat. You need to wait between "burps" or you won't significantly decarb the beer.

Personally, I think a combo method of carbing works great. Set it to 30 psi overnight. Then, turn down to serving pressure. It probably won't be perfect at 1 day, but it will be decent and then slowly come up to equilibrium. It avoids the overcarbing issue but cuts many days off of the "slow carb" method.

Click to expand...

I think I got it. I went ahead and shut off gas to the keg, I've burped it twice (in about 3 hours) and I'll burp it again before I hit the fart sack. Should I turn the gas back on tonight, or wait till morning?

Yeah, this regulator seems pretty finicky... Kinda thinking I shoulda tried to find a better quality one.

More often than not when trying to speed up the carbing process, I've messed it up. That being said, I am trying again as we speak trying to get a beer ready for weekend guests

As a side note: the low pressure gauge just tells you what the is pressure is in that line, not in the beer or the regulator setting (especially when turning down).

A few things.

Over carbing does suck.
I "quick carb" all my beers, this is my process:
Keg is cold going into keezer(keezer is set to ~48)
Run 35 psi for ~24hours
back down to 15 and its typically perfectly carbed in 2-3 days.

The temp you serve at will affect your experiences above.



As for how to fix overcarbed beer. There is a fast way to fix it other than bleeding through the vent which is a PITA and time consuming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xk79UYGmAk8#t=422s

he talks about it here. I have done it successfully and had the problem fixed in 10 minutes. Doing this will kick up some of the yeast and particulate from the bottom of the keg, it will settle in a day.

mikescooling said:

As a side note: the low pressure gauge just tells you what the is pressure is in that line, not in the beer or the regulator setting (especially when turning down).

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Yeah, I just recently figured that part out! The part that I can't figure out is why the pressure seems to increase throughout the day. As a test, I set the line pressure to ~8 psi before I left for work this morning. I'll check it and see what it is at lunch. I'm willing to bet that it will be over 12 psi. When I turn the gas up, the needle on the gauge very slowly moves up. Is this common? Seems to me like it would level off pretty quickly. THIS is the system that I'm using.

Xpertskir said:

A few things.

Over carbing does suck.
I "quick carb" all my beers, this is my process:
Keg is cold going into keezer(keezer is set to ~48)
Run 35 psi for ~24hours
back down to 15 and its typically perfectly carbed in 2-3 days.

The temp you serve at will affect your experiences above.



As for how to fix overcarbed beer. There is a fast way to fix it other than bleeding through the vent which is a PITA and time consuming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xk79UYGmAk8#t=422s

he talks about it here. I have done it successfully and had the problem fixed in 10 minutes. Doing this will kick up some of the yeast and particulate from the bottom of the keg, it will settle in a day.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I might give that method a try with my next batch. Wish I had seen that video yesterday before I started this burping the keg procedure! If it's still over-carbed when I get home tonight, I'll give that a shot.

"The part that I can't figure out is why the pressure seems to increase throughout the day. "

It's the CO2 coming out of solution from the beer. That is the whole "overcarbed" part. As soon as you reduce the pressure to below whatever your beer is carbed to, then CO2 will start coming out of solution until the pressure in the tank matches the amount of CO2 in your beer.

billl said:

"The part that I can't figure out is why the pressure seems to increase throughout the day. "

It's the CO2 coming out of solution from the beer. That is the whole "overcarbed" part. As soon as you reduce the pressure to below whatever your beer is carbed to, then CO2 will start coming out of solution until the pressure in the tank matches the amount of CO2 in your beer.

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What he said....
for the sake of saying this simply. When I have a new uncarbed keg and I set my pressure gauge seconds after hooking it up to the gas; I then know what pressure I have set a limit to the keg. The regulator will feed up to the correct pressure in about 10-30 seconds, so start low and bring the limit of pressure up to where you want it. This is not the pressure if the beer. The beer will be absorbing co2 for the next 2 weeks. Can anyone say what I'm trying to say better than the crap I can't seem to say.

mikescooling said:

What he said....
for the sake of saying this simply. When I have a new uncarbed keg and I set my pressure gauge seconds after hooking it up to the gas; I then know what pressure I have set a limit to the keg. The regulator will feed up to the correct pressure in about 10-30 seconds, so start low and bring the limit of pressure up to where you want it. This is not the pressure if the beer. The beer will be absorbing co2 for the next 2 weeks. Can anyone say what I'm trying to say better than the crap I can't seem to say.

Click to expand...

Basically, the gauge is measuring what's in the line, not in the beer, not in the tank...etc

If you over carbed the keg then turning the pressure down at the regulator only relieves the gas coming in from the tank. The beer can off-gas back into the line if the pressure is higher in the keg than in the line.

forstmeister said:

Basically, the gauge is measuring what's in the line, not in the beer, not in the tank...etc

If you over carbed the keg then turning the pressure down at the regulator only relieves the gas coming in from the tank. The beer can off-gas back into the line if the pressure is higher in the keg than in the line.

Click to expand...

That might have been a little too simple. Because, I was trying to express the lag in pressures and how gaining pressure on a new keg allows the regulator to be set.

forstmeister said:

Basically, the gauge is measuring what's in the line, not in the beer, not in the tank...etc.

Click to expand...

Actually, if you have a functioning check valve in the shut-off, the back pressure from the keg should not get into the regulator and effect the gauge reading. I'd hope that those shut-offs have check valves, but I couldn't find it in the description. If not, you definitly want to get them. My guess is that you have a leaky check valve that's letting pressure from the keg get into your regulator.


Edit:
As for setting the pressure. What I do is close the shut-off valve, turn the pressure screw way down and then pull the ring on the pressure relief to get all the CO2 out of the regulator. After that, with the valve still closed, I gradually increase the pressure until it's at serving pressure, and then open the valve. The needle on the gauge may drop, but that's ok. It will eventually reach equilibrium.

I had this happen to me recently - I way overcarbed 2 beers (left them on 30psi for a week-it blew a cobra tap head and poured 1/4 of a keg out on the bottom of my Keezer)

I unhooked my co2 and released the pressure every night for about 4 nights - it was perfect pale ale carb by the 5th day

Ok, I think I'm making some progress. I went home at lunch and the gauge read 10 psi. So it appears that maybe I've managed to release some of the carbonation from the beer. I'll pour a pint after work and see how it goes! Thanks for all the tips!!