Sky7
Active Member
I'm just going to lay it all out there:
Just started trying to keg about 2 brews ago, and both have been epic fails when it comes to carbonation.
Brew 1:
Put the boiled sugar water in the bottom of the keg, let it cool, then poured the beer in on top of it. Closed it up, waited 2 weeks, hooked it up to the C02.... and I got beer juice. Pressurized the keg, and noticed that there was a small amount of air escaping from the "IN" hookup.
Beer 2:
Hoping to avoid the issues with Brew 1, I replaced the seals around both the IN and OUT - my local homebrew store guy showed me how, so I think I did that right. I pressurized the keg to 12 PSI, then put soap and water lightly all over the top. No bubbles.
Repeated the steps from Brew 1 with the sugar water and carbonation period. Hooked it up to the C02, and I again got beer juice. Thinking that I might have just screwed up the sugar water or yeast somehow, I decided to try to force carbonate. Cranked it up to 30 PSI, shake, rattled and rolled for 15 minutes, then I put it back in the keezer for 2 hours (btw, it was cold before I started force carbonating).
Then I decided to try an experiment - I hooked the keg back up to the C02 at 30 PSI, and to my dismay, it started filling rabidly. So that means I must have a leak, right?
What's weird, however, it that when I keep it pressurized and hooked up to the C02, my CO2 levels don't become depleted (like it would if there was a leak).
Needless to say, this entire situation has me flummoxed. If you have any idea what might be wrong, please let me know!
Just started trying to keg about 2 brews ago, and both have been epic fails when it comes to carbonation.
Brew 1:
Put the boiled sugar water in the bottom of the keg, let it cool, then poured the beer in on top of it. Closed it up, waited 2 weeks, hooked it up to the C02.... and I got beer juice. Pressurized the keg, and noticed that there was a small amount of air escaping from the "IN" hookup.
Beer 2:
Hoping to avoid the issues with Brew 1, I replaced the seals around both the IN and OUT - my local homebrew store guy showed me how, so I think I did that right. I pressurized the keg to 12 PSI, then put soap and water lightly all over the top. No bubbles.
Repeated the steps from Brew 1 with the sugar water and carbonation period. Hooked it up to the C02, and I again got beer juice. Thinking that I might have just screwed up the sugar water or yeast somehow, I decided to try to force carbonate. Cranked it up to 30 PSI, shake, rattled and rolled for 15 minutes, then I put it back in the keezer for 2 hours (btw, it was cold before I started force carbonating).
Then I decided to try an experiment - I hooked the keg back up to the C02 at 30 PSI, and to my dismay, it started filling rabidly. So that means I must have a leak, right?
What's weird, however, it that when I keep it pressurized and hooked up to the C02, my CO2 levels don't become depleted (like it would if there was a leak).
Needless to say, this entire situation has me flummoxed. If you have any idea what might be wrong, please let me know!