Forced Carbonation--no kegerator...disaster?

I've been successfully brewing for about five years and I'm on my second batch of using a Corny keg.
I had my secondary fermentation in the Corny keg and then hooked up the CO2 tank.
After purging the tank, we started it at 30 psi and waited a week to try it out. The keg is in a closet and our house is around 79 degrees. We don't have a fridge to put it in.
We've been trying it everyday since with the same result-->huge head, flat beer.

Can the warm temperature of my house be the culprit? How can I make my delicious beer bubbly?

Co2 will come out of solution at warm temps like your talking about, hence the lots of foam and flat beer.

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/support-files/kegcarbonationchart.pdf

Check out this chart for a reference, looks like at that temp you will need 30 psi just to get your average 2.5 volumes or so. I force carb cold, but would assume based on this that it would still take several weeks to carbonate this way. I could be totally wrong though. Also be sure to purge your keg and drop your pressure when you intend to serve.

Yep...I knew it!
The last batch was brewed in an outdoor closet in the winter. There were no problems then.
I think we are going to have to bite the bullet and buy a fridge.
Thanks!

cootball said:

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/support-files/kegcarbonationchart.pdf

Check out this chart for a reference, looks like at that temp you will need 30 psi just to get your average 2.5 volumes or so. I force carb cold, but would assume based on this that it would still take several weeks to carbonate this way. I could be totally wrong though. Also be sure to purge your keg and drop your pressure when you intend to serve.

Click to expand...

Exactly. It takes significantly more co2 to carb a beer at warmer temps. I don't have a kegerator yet either, but I use a 70 qt cooler to cold crash my keg to 42* or so and then 'blast carb' it with 25-30 psi for a few days before backing off to ten psi. I try to keep the keg between 40-45* in the cooler, but haven't had problems when it warms up and I have to rechill it.

Super easy keg cooler: igloo 70qt maxcool cooler. 2'x2' of Foamular foam insulation with a hole cut in middle cuz the top of the keg sticks out. If you cut the foam so it fits snug around the keg, it makes a pretty decent top. Keeps it cold for days. I find with a full keg, around 25 pounds of ice keeps the cooler cold for about a week in my kitchen (~75* room temp), less ice as the keg gets drained. Cheap, simple, took ten mins to cut the Foamular and it's holding us over til we build a kegerator.

+1 on the fridge making life better/easier. However, I didn't have one for a year with mulitple kegs and I threw mine on 30PSI at room temp ( 72)for a week and serving day I would put them in a iced cooler and lower PSI down to 5 to serve. It worked just fine. Check out Craiglist for a month if you are super cheap. I have two that work well from there for free.