Carbonation Levels Kegging - Need Help

So I am fairly new to kegging and have a question. A quick rundown of my set up is a keezer, temp controlled with a ranco at +/- 1 degree set to 40 F. I transfer my beers to the keg at 40F prior to hooking the gas up to it. My issue, as the title states, is getting the carbonation level correct in the beer.

I started off following the pressure volumes provided in the draught quality manual and using their beer line length formula to size my lines. The 3 different kegs I've done are all way under carbonated after 4 weeks using the set it and forget it method. A week ago after continue research, I then saw the little asterisk below the chart that stated to increase the psi 1 unit per every 2000 ft. I am in Denver so I added 3 psi. This made it better but not by much.

My question is this. Has anyone else had to increase the amount of gas over the charts recommendations to get their beers carbonated to the appropriate levels? I cannot find anyone that has. I am trying to go for 2.4 vol's (a typical microbrew APA) and am current at 14.2 psi (11.2 + 3 for altitude) at 40F and it comes off as a 2.0-2.1 beer. This is after raising from 11.2 to 14.2 and letting it sit for 1 week. I pour a glass and there are still minimal bubbles forming. I am going to add another 2 psi and let it sit another week but I just don't know if this will help.

I will say that I have verified the temp in the keezer with a seperate thermo and my beers are not coming out excessively foamy. The gauges to regulate the keg pressure are secondary off the primary regulator. Primary is outside, secondary gauges are inside. I used 3 different gauges for the 3 different beers (row of 5). I have hose clamps at every connection pint and have verified that they are all tight.

Any help would be appreciated.

Continue increasing the pressure in increments until the carbonation level is where you want it and don't worry so much about the charts.

The best thing I ever did for my keggerator was replace the calculated line lengths with 12' of 3/16ths. Pours might be a bit slower, but I never have foaming problems.

15 PSI is what you should be at for 2.4 volumes, at 40 degrees and your altitude. if you dont like that carb level, obviously increase it until you do.

if your gauge is off by +/- 2-3 PSI, as they typically are, that could explain it alone. i also somewhat doubt the accuracy of the average persons tounge to distinguish between 2.1 and 2.4 volumes of CO2. its very possible that you are just tasting 2.4 and just desiring 2.8 or something. unless you are doing this commercially where you have to hit a certain flavor profile, just turn the pressure up untill you like what you taste.

The charts you're referring to are essentially a baseline/average based on lab/physics calculations. Remember that there are always veriables. As you've noted - you're at somewhere near 6000 ft in altitude this is cetainly a factor. The exact temperature of your fluid beer vs the temperature of air in your keezer, vs the temperature of the exterior of your keg, and so on.

The quality of the o-rings/seal that you have in your system (or anywhere else that you might have a small leak) could also be a factor. Do you have good orings, are they lubed and tight fitting?

The tables can be a bit misleading as well as they seem to imply that you can simly turn up the pressure to reach the desired Volume, but my experience, is that you reach a serving pressure ( or overpressure ) limit very quickly as pressure rises, and your beer will become unservable - all foam.

Bottle carb potential is different from keg potential, in that you are constanltly pulling pressure from the keg, reducing the volume of beer in the vessel and increasing the headspace - short term changes to pressure, volume, etc. In a bottle you start with a certain potential and it remains until you pop the cap, assuming a good seal, and no overpressure ( bottle rockets). This isnt true with 'serving pressures' in kegs. You can crank the psi up to shorten carb time to the max, but you are going to crank it back down at some point and bleed excess psi/volumes to serve the beer successfully, and when you do, the amount of carb in your beer will wane.

The secret for more carb at lower psi is colder temps. Krank your keezer temp regulator to 32, at this temp 10 psi will get you 2.7 volumes of carb and 13 psi will get you all the to 3 volumes, with the added benefit that you can very likely serve a beer with some head but not a frothy, foamy mess at this pressure.

audger said:

15 PSI is what you should be at for 2.4 volumes, at 40 degrees and your altitude. if you dont like that carb level, obviously increase it until you do.

if your gauge is off by +/- 2-3 PSI, as they typically are, that could explain it alone. i also somewhat doubt the accuracy of the average persons tounge to distinguish between 2.1 and 2.4 volumes of CO2. its very possible that you are just tasting 2.4 and just desiring 2.8 or something. unless you are doing this commercially where you have to hit a certain flavor profile, just turn the pressure up untill you like what you taste.

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I know I don't want 2.8. That is the level of the light/lite beers and is way to high for me on my dunkel. I am pretty good with figuring out carbonation levels as I tend to like my beers on the lower side and usually check for the levels of the craft brews I drink is provided on their website.

Canon, I did not use keg lube on the first 3 kegs I've done but will use it going forward. I did spray the lids with starsan to make sure they were not leaking. The kegs were all recently purchased and I bought new seal kits for each.

I didn't think about the fact that the gauges could be off seeing as they are new. Anyway to test them to see how accurate they are? I was thinking of setting my primary reg at 30 psi and then just opening all the secondaries up all the way to see if they are close to 30.