How much head on porter w/o creamer faucet?

[Dr_Horrible]

Just curious what my expectations should be on a stout/porter pour without a stout/creamer faucet? I have the reg set low according to the chart, and so now I'm having trouble determining if the carbonation is right or not, because I would normally judge it by the head size.

The carbonation tastes pretty close but I don't claim to be an expert in detecting carbonation levels.

 

[day_trippr]

You're kinda talking about two different but related things between carbonation level and head. I'd decide what I like for a carbonation level first, many go for around 2-2.1 volumes. Beyond that, there's no need for a "creamer faucet", just fill at full speed with your faucet 'til you get a few fingers from the rim and then close the faucet down 'til it makes foam to top off your pint...

Cheers!

 

[Dr_Horrible]

You're kinda talking about two different but related things between carbonation level and head. I'd decide what I like for a carbonation level first, many go for around 2-2.1 volumes. Beyond that, there's no need for a "creamer faucet", just fill at full speed with your faucet 'til you get a few fingers from the rim and then close the faucet down 'til it makes foam to top off your pint...

Cheers!

Silly question but do you just develop the "taste" for carbonation levels as you get more experienced? I know that if you set it and forget it, the beer will eventually get there. But after a 1 week taste test, I imagine it's mostly experience with the flavors?

 

[day_trippr]

Silly question but do you just develop the "taste" for carbonation levels as you get more experienced? I know that if you set it and forget it, the beer will eventually get there. But after a 1 week taste test, I imagine it's mostly experience with the flavors?

90% of the beer I brew take 2.5 weeks to truly reach the desired terminal carbonation level (yes, using the so-called "set and forget" method" - which I like to call "Old Reliable" ) The rest take longer, some up to 4 weeks (eg: big stouts that finish in the 20-24 point range).

When I started kegging I used "Old Reliable" from the jump, sampled the kegs daily after a week or so, and compared the quality against store-bought examples of the same style. When my pours were "ready" by the benchmarks I recorded the duration, pressure, temperature, FG, etc, for that recipe. It didn't take long for the correlation from batch to batch to be apparent, so I built my pipeline to allow for at least 2.5 weeks of cold carbonation time.

There was a period where patience was a key commodity as the pipeline was built up, but now I actually don't need as much patience as most

Cheers!