Carbonation / Bubbles Appearance Compared to Pro Breweries. Am I Doing Something Wrong?

[awoitte]

I've been bottling for years and kegging for about 2. After a lot of testing and tweaking my carbonation levels I feel like the beers poured out of my kegs taste about right to be carbonated (roughly) correctly.

That said, my beers (majority of them being some form of pale ale, IPA, or some other ale) don't seem to have that constant mass of a ton of bubbles floating up after a pour. I'm getting a good amount of head on the beers that should have it, and as I said they taste carbonated, but I'd like to have that appearance of the co2 floating to the surface minutes after.

My beers seem to have less from the beginning, and stop much earlier than beers on draft from pubs.

Before I crank up one of my beers for a test that may end up just over carbonating I wanted to get some feedback.

Cheers

 

[day_trippr]

Are you referencing a carbonation table/calculator/chart when setting your CO2 pressure vs temperature - for both carbonation and dispensing? Like, our favorite carbonation table?

Otherwise, remember that "head" comes from the same CO2 that provides "carbonation", so the volume of head is a trade-off vs mouth feel, with a rise in the former leading to a diminished latter.

Lastly, it takes time for a keg of beer to develop the "fine bubbles" that seem to persist longer. Accelerated carbonation techniques don't seem to get to that same point until they've sat for awhile under constant pressure...

Cheers!

 

[awoitte]

Are you referencing a carbonation table/calculator/chart when setting your CO2 pressure vs temperature - for both carbonation and dispensing? Like, our favorite carbonation table?

Otherwise, remember that "head" comes from the same CO2 that provides "carbonation", so the volume of head is a trade-off vs mouth feel, with a rise in the former leading to a diminished latter.

Lastly, it takes time for a keg of beer to develop the "fine bubbles" that seem to persist longer. Accelerated carbonation techniques don't seem to get to that same point until they've sat for awhile under constant pressure...

Cheers!

I have referred to that chart for some time =)

I have my keezer set at 45'. My current pale ale has been kegged for at least 6 weeks sitting at 11-13PSI and still not a lot of bubbles.

Should I bump it up to 15-16 and let it rest for a week and see if it changes? It's just something I've noticed for a while and haven't bothered with it because I've been happy with the rest of my beer. But as I get more into it I'm getting picky about the fine details.

 

[day_trippr]

Depends. On a typical pour, how much head do you typically get? If it's more than a finger or so imo the residual carbonation can be noticeably attenuated from what I consider ideal.

The other possibility is the low pressure gauge is reading high - or you have multiple, spring-loaded check-valves between the regulator and the keg (each of them can drop the pressure by up to 1 psi). That can easily happen - the primary regs that feed my keezer all have built-in checks, as do the manifolds inside the keezer. So a primary gauge reading 12 psi results in 10 psi at the keg (verified with a gauge plugged into a QD)...

Chers!

 

[bracconiere]

Should I bump it up to 15-16 and let it rest for a week and see if it changes?

i would think you'd need new beer lines, or variable resistance taps for that....better, i would think, is getting it colder than 45f....

 

[awoitte]

The head seems to be pretty standard. It doesn't seem overcarbonated and my pours aren't rushing out, yet I can pour it near the glass without touching and still get some. I guess there's one way to find out. I'm gonna turn up my secondary regulator a few PSI and see if that makes a difference in a week.

 

[day_trippr]

Ok, the combination of 45°F and 11-13 psi would result in 2.17 to 2.34 volumes of CO2 - assuming the keg is actually "seeing" the gauge pressure (which would mean zero check valves between regulator body and keg). I consider 2.34 to be low for pales/ipas and especially low for wheat beers/hefes/etc - I like 2.5 volumes for most of my brews, which would mean 15 psi at the keg at 45°F.

So, yeah, it might be worth bumping up a couple of PSI and waiting for the keg to hit the new equilibrium...

Cheers!