Carbonation woes - good mouthfeel but no bubbles

I recently kegged my first homebrew... well two of em. I made a nut brown ale and a Fat Tire clone. Both being ales I decided to carbonate at 7psi. The charts actually indicated 4-6psi for an English ale but I wanted to have it ready in time for the holidays. However, I did not want to force carbonate it. So I left it set at around 7psi for a week prior to drinking.

The first glass poured fine, with about an 1/8 inch of foam head and fair mouthfeel.

My question is there are no bubbles or 'action' as a fellow homebrewer mentioned while critiquing my beer. At first gush, the beer does look flat, the foam head recedes after a few minutes and the body of the beer shows no stream of bubbles or anything happening at all as far as carbonation goes. Yet, the beer tastes fine. Is that natural for a low volume of CO2 or can I do anything to improve the 'action' so that I have a steady stream of bubbles happening in the pint glass?

Thanks!

It isn't fully carbed after a week at 7psi, be patient (should take at least 2 weeks). I wouldn't worry about columns of bubbles, it aint going to happen with a nut brown properly carbed.

If you want a good stream of carb bubbles go to the local bar and get a miller lite.

Technically, I have had it sitting in a keg carbonating at 7psi since 12/19/09 so it is just a little over 2 weeks. Most of what I have read says to expect to wait between 3-5 days for a keg to carbonate (I'm using 5 gallon corny kegs).

I'm not getting all hung up on this but a good pour, a nice foam head, the aromatics, and the aesthetics are the details I wish to fine tune.

Loved the Miller lite comment. I have not come close enough to a miller in about 20 years to take note of its pisslike qualities but I'll take your word on it.

I keg at a slightly higher pressure (10 psi) and it takes closer to 2 weeks before I see the carbonation that I want.

Ok, so it is really a matter of me needing more patience. I thought slow natural carbonation in a corny keg takes 3-5 days. It sounds like I need to wait a bit longer.

My friend who turned me onto homebrewing force carbonates all of his beers at about 30 PSI. His friend pounds and rocks their corny at 65psi. I want to stay more within the style guidelines to match a beer at its appropriate carbonation level.

I've never had any luck force carbing my beers...anytime I screw with the pressure gauges I can never get them to even back out at the levels I want.

If you don't get the carbonation you want after 2 weeks...try bumping up the pressure a little and wait a few more days.

You aren't naturally carbing the keg. If you use CO2, its force carbing. If you use sugar, wort (krausening) or DME, then you can call it 'natural carbing'.


Whether you choose to force carb quickly, or over the course of 2 weeks...its still force carb'd.

7psi probably won't give you much CO2 in solution. How quickly does it take to pour a pint? You could be knocking some CO2 out of solution if your tap lines aren't balanced.

It takes about 8 seconds to pour a pint and about 4 seconds to drink it which is a pretty good tap line balance... but I think you are talking about something different. The flow rate seems typical so I don't think I'm knocking C02 out of solution.

You got me on the semantics of 'force carbing'. What I meant was to carbonate the beer according to a proper style guideline. It seems 'unatural' to me to take a beer and rock it at 30psi and change the mouthfeel with a huge volume of C02.

Cenosillica said:

You got me on the semantics of 'force carbing'. What I meant was to carbonate the beer according to a proper style guideline. It seems 'unatural' to me to take a beer and rock it at 30psi and change the mouthfeel with a huge volume of C02.

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Your patience will be rewarded. It takes far longer than 3 days to force carb with the set it and forget it method. Just for kicks whats your temp and volumes of C02 your shooting for?

malkore said:

7psi probably won't give you much CO2 in solution. How quickly does it take to pour a pint? You could be knocking some CO2 out of solution if your tap lines aren't balanced.

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It depends on the temp of the beer and the volumes of Co2 you want. The co2 will never come out of solution with the set and forget it method. That happens when people force carb at 30 psi then shake the hell out their keg then serve at 5psi because it's all foam.

Cenosillica said:

It takes about 8 seconds to pour a pint and about 4 seconds to drink it which is a pretty good tap line balance... but I think you are talking about something different. The flow rate seems typical so I don't think I'm knocking C02 out of solution.

You got me on the semantics of 'force carbing'. What I meant was to carbonate the beer according to a proper style guideline. It seems 'unatural' to me to take a beer and rock it at 30psi and change the mouthfeel with a huge volume of C02.

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Gotcha. that does sound like a fast pour though. 8 seconds for a pint? that's at least twice as fast as my system, and I push about 12psi through 8 feet of tap line.

I could be wrong, but it's worth investigating, and would be easy to test. Just turn off the CO2, vent the keg pressure, then reapply like, 4psi and immediately draw a pint. should take longer and see if the beer has the right carb level.