Carbonation problems

[Rickybobby17b]

My buddies and I just made a smashing pumpkin kit and the beer tasted excellent we did add one vanilla bean one cinnamon stick and half a tsp of nutmeg to the secondary the only thing wrong with the beer was its lack or carbonation, which many or our other brews have had a similar problem. We put the priming sugar and beer in a corny keg with 5psi to use both natural and force carbing methods. We let the beer stay like that for 6 weeks in the keg. There was so much foam when we tapped the keg last night so we let it settle and dropped serving pressure to below 1psi when we finally got beer there was nearly no carbonation in it and we had to fight with the foam the whole night. What makes a beer not absorb the carbonation like ours did

 

[scoundrel]

My buddies and I just made a smashing pumpkin kit and the beer tasted excellent we did add one vanilla bean one cinnamon stick and half a tsp of nutmeg to the secondary the only thing wrong with the beer was its lack or carbonation, which many or our other brews have had a similar problem. We put the priming sugar and beer in a corny keg with 5psi to use both natural and force carbing methods. We let the beer stay like that for 6 weeks in the keg. There was so much foam when we tapped the keg last night so we let it settle and dropped serving pressure to below 1psi when we finally got beer there was nearly no carbonation in it and we had to fight with the foam the whole night. What makes a beer not absorb the carbonation like ours did

What was the beer temp?

 

[Newsman]

Probably too much CO2. What you should do in a case like that, most likely, would be to use the release valve to release most of the free CO2, then serve at normal pressure. I think there was probably plenty of dissolved CO2, just that the free CO2 was too much.

 

[Rickybobby17b]

Probably too much CO2. What you should do in a case like that, most likely, would be to use the release valve to release most of the free CO2, then serve at normal pressure. I think there was probably plenty of dissolved CO2, just that the free CO2 was too much.

Yea we did that too so idk what happened

 

[Ta0]

I have had carbonation issues in the past... this is what I have found:
1 - at decreasing temperatures, C02 goes into solution much easier. get it cold. ~40 deg F should be fine
2 - foam kills carbonation, reduce foam.
- keep beer lines cold, this greatly reduces foam
- keep beer lines very very clean
- beer lines need to be long enough, but not to long (5-6 feet) and have the correct diameter for your fluid velocity. I think around 3/16 ID is ok.

I hope this helps. I know how annoying a great beer without carbonation can be.

 

[scoundrel]

After thinking about it, I may know what happened. I'm making some assumptions so correct me if I'm wrong. Since your using priming sugar along with 5 psi, I suspect the keg is at room temp. CO2 wants to get out of solution. The colder the beer, the easier it is absorbed. So, at 35-40 degrees, the beer will need roughly 10-15 psi to maintain carbonation. At room temp it needs around 30-35 psi to be absorbed in the beer. I suspect the priming sugar plus 5 psi is not building enough pressure to carbonate the beer.

For example, if the regulator is set to 5 psi and the priming sugar only gives you an additional 10 psi of pressure, the CO2 will never be absorbed into the beer. There will be CO2 in the keg and there will be foam, but since you aren't at 30 psi, the beer will be flat.

I apologize for plugging my site but making a gauge may help. Here's a link on how to make one.

How to make a pressure guage for you kegs.

It removes all the guesswork. If the gauge reads less than 30 psi at room temp bump up the regulator until it maintains 30 and you're good to go.

 

[glandry]

I have a similar problem I only have a 15.5gal keg and put my batch in and sealed it. When it was time to tap the keg it's flat as all get out.( but tastes perfect). It's been in kegerator for months I'm not willing to throw it out. I pretty sure the problem is the fact that I didn't pressurize the keg my question is can I save this beer by allowing it to come back up to temp while pressurized Should I put a pinch of yeast in it

 

[glandry]

After my last post (1 hour ago). I realized that I hadn't tried my flat brew in about a month so I poured out enough to clear the lines. Amazing. It has head and carb in suspension. Guess I just needed to wait longer. But nearly 2 1/2 months seems a little long.