No C02 in kegged beer

[Cross]

Hello all! I brewed and kegged beer for the first time. I used an Amber recipe from Northern Brewer and it turned out great but I’m having trouble getting C02 in the beer. I tried the method of adding C02 then rolling the leg for 2 minutes but that didn’t work. Then I tried turning up the C02 to 30 psi and letting it sit for 3 days but no success there either. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do?

TIA!

 

[HutBrew]

The beer is refrigerated to ~33-40*F correct?

Soap and water test done on the corny connections?

 

[day_trippr]

Welcome to the forums at Homebrew Talk, @Cross

30 psi for 3 days on even "room temperature" beer should still have resulted in easily noticeable carbonation, and if it had been applied to cold beer the carbonation level could have been approaching DEFCON 5

Something ain't right here. More data is needed.
As above, what is the temperature of the beer at this point?
And are you certain you still have gas in the cylinder? Give it a shake, should hear/feel some sloshing.

fwiw, my go-to inclination in such matters if they involve Cornelius kegs is there's a huge leak and the keg simply is not holding any pressure...

Cheers!

 

[HM-2]

When you pull the PRV on the keg, does it vent CO2?

 

[Neldog0]

Hello all! I brewed and kegged beer for the first time. I used an Amber recipe from Northern Brewer and it turned out great but I’m having trouble getting C02 in the beer. I tried the method of adding C02 then rolling the leg for 2 minutes but that didn’t work. Then I tried turning up the C02 to 30 psi and letting it sit for 3 days but no success there either. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do?

TIA!

Assuming you have CO2 & no leaks in you keg, a fail safe way of adding a volume of 2.4 to 2.7 volume of CO2 is to set your temp to 36f & your pressure to 10-12 psi and let it go for 7-10 days.

 

[rawlus]

what does “no success” mean? what happens after performing the steps you mention? use descriptive words.

 

[Redhouse Brewing]

I once had the same issue and after troubleshooting, found it to be a bad poppet valve on the gas post. I replaced the entire post.

 

[Cross]

Thank you all for your input. To add a bit more information, initially when I connected the keg I wasn't getting much head so I turned it up to 30psi for about 3 days then turned it down to 12psi. After doing so I would get a blast of C02 followed by beer. There would be a little over 4 inches of head which would slowly settle from the bottom up to 3 inches of head where it would stop. On Sunday I turned it down to about 5 psi and let it sit for the week. I poured some a bit ago and the blast of head had stopped and I got more beer and less head although when I straightened the glass while pouring I got more head which seems normal. I turned up the C02 back to 12 and it went back to the blast of C02 followed by beer which eventually settled. And there is still not much carbonation in the beer itself. I had bought the corny keg second hand but the guy showed me the day I bought it that it still held pressure and before I opened it to clean it I released the rest of the pressure that was in there. I didn't do the soap and water test when I initially got it. Also the kegerator was at 40F now its down to 37F.

 

[camonick]

Thank you all for your input. To add a bit more information, initially when I connected the keg I wasn't getting much head so I turned it up to 30psi for about 3 days then turned it down to 12psi. After doing so I would get a blast of C02 followed by beer. There would be a little over 4 inches of head which would slowly settle from the bottom up to 3 inches of head where it would stop. On Sunday I turned it down to about 5 psi and let it sit for the week. I poured some a bit ago and the blast of head had stopped and I got more beer and less head although when I straightened the glass while pouring I got more head which seems normal. I turned up the C02 back to 12 and it went back to the blast of C02 followed by beer which eventually settled. And there is still not much carbonation in the beer itself. I had bought the corny keg second hand but the guy showed me the day I bought it that it still held pressure and before I opened it to clean it I released the rest of the pressure that was in there. I didn't do the soap and water test when I initially got it. Also the kegerator was at 40F now its down to 37F.

This second description is much different than the first…
How long and what inside dimensions are your beer lines? What you’re describing now is a severely over-carbonated keg that doesn’t have the correct amount of restriction in the lines to handle that. Over-carbonation will cause excessive foaming, which leads to a beer in the glass that is flat.

 

[fluketamer]

plus one on what camonick said
it sounds like your beer has plenty of co2 in it its just a matter of getting the beer into a glass without getting the foam out of the beer first . ( line resistance length diameter etc. ) try a picnic tap 2.1 and lower your keg pressure to less than 10 psi it should pour well. or you can mess around with line length.

 

[Neldog0]

Thank you all for your input. To add a bit more information, initially when I connected the keg I wasn't getting much head so I turned it up to 30psi for about 3 days then turned it down to 12psi. After doing so I would get a blast of C02 followed by beer. There would be a little over 4 inches of head which would slowly settle from the bottom up to 3 inches of head where it would stop. On Sunday I turned it down to about 5 psi and let it sit for the week. I poured some a bit ago and the blast of head had stopped and I got more beer and less head although when I straightened the glass while pouring I got more head which seems normal. I turned up the C02 back to 12 and it went back to the blast of C02 followed by beer which eventually settled. And there is still not much carbonation in the beer itself. I had bought the corny keg second hand but the guy showed me the day I bought it that it still held pressure and before I opened it to clean it I released the rest of the pressure that was in there. I didn't do the soap and water test when I initially got it. Also the kegerator was at 40F now its down to 37F.

It sounds like you have too much CO2 in you beer. You need to balance the beer. Lowering the PSI will not allow the CO2 to balance to 10-12 PSI. Before you tap a beer, pull the relief valve & relieve the pressure. Make sure you have your CO2 turned off when you do this. Keep relieving the pressure before each pour until the pour settles to a normal flow. Once you do this turn your CO2 back on to hold pressure to a serving range of 10-12 psi.
If this doesn’t solve the issue then you need to look at you line diameter & length.

 

[Bobby_M]

There are dozens of reasons that may explain what is going on here and I'll try to list them in order of likelihood if possible.

The dispensing hose is too short or too wide. For standard PVC hose, you need about 10-12 feet and it HAS to be 3/16" ID. Not 4 feet of 3/16 or 5 feet of 1/4". This seriously matters and if you have anything except 10 feet of 3/16" ID tubing, stop right here and fix that.

The beer is overcarbonated and you're dispensing at a pressure LOWER than the current carbonation level. It's impossible to dispense beer cleanly with a pressure that is lower than the carbonation especially if your serving hose is too short or too wide.

You MIGHT have the long draw diptube installed under the gas in port on the keg. If that's the case, co2 goes in and bubbles up through the beer and foam dispenses out from the top. This will only happen while the keg is really full. As it empties, the foam will no longer reach the output and you'll just get mostly gas. For future reference the "in" port of the get is for Co2 input and the diptube is only about 1" long. The "out" if for beer output and has the internal diptube that goes all the way down to the bottom of the keg.

There MAY be a leak between the long diptube and the inside of the keg. This is is relatively rare, but it sometimes accounts for why a properly carbonated beer will spit a mix of beer and bubbles out of the keg forever. You'd see bubbles entering the beer tubing constantly and it never looks like just solid beer.

The pressure gauge on your regulator may not be accurate. This would result in either undercarbonation or overcarbonation (and dispensing at a very high pressure). The only way to know for certainty what the keg's carbonation level actually is given all the things you've done so far is to attach a pressure gauge directly to a gas QD and put that on the keg. Wait about 1-2 hours and then read the gauge. Note that, as well as the temperature of the beer and then look at the carbonation charts with those two data points in mind.



Note that when you describe what you did with a keg, we really need to know about twice as many details to help you out. It all matters. Did you chill the beer down first? To what temperature? When you rolled the beer around on the floor, what was the pressure? A video of the beer pouring and/or a video of the beer passing through the tubing, may help.

 

[Cross]

The hoses are about 1/2” thick on the outside and about 40” long from the keg to the tap

 

[VikeMan]

The hoses are about 1/2” thick on the outside and about 40” long from the keg to the tap

Outside diameter doesn't matter. You need to know the inside diameter if you want to figure out how to balance your system.

 

[Broken Crow]

The hoses are about 1/2” thick on the outside and about 40” long from the keg to the tap

Way too short! Maybe if that were the 3mm ID EVAbarrier it'd be OK, but that's only about 1/4" OD.
You could see if the printing is still on the line giving materials and dimensions, but at only 40" long, you'll still have to replace it....Even using 3/16" ID Bevlex 200, though some folk get buy with about 5-6', but most will go to about 10'.
I have brain damage and issues with math, so I'll leave you this as a starting point:
https://www.kegerators.com/beer-line-calculator/and leave it to others to fill in the details.

 

[mashdar]

plus one on what camonick said
it sounds like your beer has plenty of co2 in it its just a matter of getting the beer into a glass without getting the foam out of the beer first . ( line resistance length diameter etc. ) try a picnic tap 2.1 and lower your keg pressure to less than 10 psi it should pour well. or you can mess around with line length.

Second picnic tap 2.1 for clean solution if you don't have faucets.

It pours slowly, and at high pressure (>15psi?) you can eventually get foam, but for reasonable pressures it works almost too well. I intentionally pour straight down the glass a bit to get some head.

There are some extra options on the ebay store, but he sells them on amazon now, too. The creator (Trong) provides excellent support/QA.

 

[Bobby_M]

The hoses are about 1/2” thick on the outside and about 40” long from the keg to the tap

ID means Inside Diameter. That spec will be printed on the tubing itself so just read it. Please be precise. If you provide generic information, you'll get (unhelpful) generic answers. Even if the tubing is the typically appropriate 3/16" inside diameter, 40" is about twice as short as it needs to be. If it's really 1/2" OD and it's thick walled tubing, it most likely 1/4" ID which is essentially a FIRE HOSE in terms of beer dispensing.

You can use 10-12 feet of 3/16" ID or 5-6 feet of 4mm ID EVA barrier tubing. You have to make this change or it's not going to pour properly.