I'm a bit of a born-again-brewer so feel like a newbie with dejavu. After not brewing for over 23 years, I decided to get back into the hobby with my son and have been having a blast. Our first batch was a NEIPA, which although we had some first batch issues, has turned out to be a nice beer. 20+ years ago, I primarily bottled but had kegs for the planned parties, but would typically carbonate with corn sugar in the keg, then use a hand pump when we were poor or CO2 to dispense. We we able to get a free kegerator when we started and we force carbonated for the first time. Initially, the beer was too flat, went through a short period of time where we had the perfect pour, and for the remaining 75% of the keg it has been too foamy - like 1/2-3/4 glass of foam. Now we let it sit, pour again and still enjoy it. I have been following a bunch of advice on the internet and have been changing things but nothing seems to help. Forgive the detail of how I carbonated and what I have been doing, but I just kegged a pale ale and hoping to get this figured out. Or maybe I just need to stop messing with it, but I assume it should re-equilibrate in a few days and after some more beer was removed.
- Kegged ~4.8 gal of beer at 68 deg, purged keg 3 times with co2, then sealed with 30 psi of CO2
- shook keg for ~ 2-3 min with CO2 at 30 psi - keg was still vert ( read later about rolling on side) until I did not hear CO2 flow
- Disconnected CO2 and set in kegerator. Next day, connected CO2 and set to 15 psi - let sit for 5 days then turned down to 12. For first 3 days would manually turn on and off CO2 from keg about 3 times per day, - just paranoid i guess. Then read about leaving it on so turned on CO2 and lowered to 12 psi.
Had first glass after 6 days and was a little flat still, so bumped up CO2 to 20 psi
- Next day pour was perfect. Left at 20 psig.
- Next day pour was too foamy - but not horrible. lowered to 12 psi
- Foamy pours continued to get worse. Turned off CO2. Even when pour was very slow it still was very foamy, turned on CO2 back to 10 psi
- When I got the kegerator, I completely cleaned and rebuilt it with new gas and beer lines, new keg connectors, and disassembled the taps and cleaned and replaced the o-rings. Before hooking up the keg, the new lines were cleaned and sanitized. I heard that dirty lines can cause this but can this be caused in 2 weeks? I star-san the tap every night after use.
- I used 3/16" ID beer lines and from what I read they should be between 6-10' long. I started with 10'. I have cut twice now a foot at a time, so now to 8' and have seen no impact on pour or foam.
- I checked for kinks in the beer lines and have them neatly coiled on top of the keg before going up into the tower to the tap. I get that the tower might be warmer and there might be an initial burst of foam because of that, but with glass tilted, and cold beer flowing, foam, foam and more foam.
Again, sorry for all the detail, but I really can't find much in the way of a step-by-step for force carbonation. I understand the CO2 partial pressures we want to be at for specific beers, less carbonated for English bitters, more carbonated for German pilsners, but keg to glass seems to be my struggle at the moment.
- Kegged ~4.8 gal of beer at 68 deg, purged keg 3 times with co2, then sealed with 30 psi of CO2
- shook keg for ~ 2-3 min with CO2 at 30 psi - keg was still vert ( read later about rolling on side) until I did not hear CO2 flow
- Disconnected CO2 and set in kegerator. Next day, connected CO2 and set to 15 psi - let sit for 5 days then turned down to 12. For first 3 days would manually turn on and off CO2 from keg about 3 times per day, - just paranoid i guess. Then read about leaving it on so turned on CO2 and lowered to 12 psi.
Had first glass after 6 days and was a little flat still, so bumped up CO2 to 20 psi
- Next day pour was perfect. Left at 20 psig.
- Next day pour was too foamy - but not horrible. lowered to 12 psi
- Foamy pours continued to get worse. Turned off CO2. Even when pour was very slow it still was very foamy, turned on CO2 back to 10 psi
- When I got the kegerator, I completely cleaned and rebuilt it with new gas and beer lines, new keg connectors, and disassembled the taps and cleaned and replaced the o-rings. Before hooking up the keg, the new lines were cleaned and sanitized. I heard that dirty lines can cause this but can this be caused in 2 weeks? I star-san the tap every night after use.
- I used 3/16" ID beer lines and from what I read they should be between 6-10' long. I started with 10'. I have cut twice now a foot at a time, so now to 8' and have seen no impact on pour or foam.
- I checked for kinks in the beer lines and have them neatly coiled on top of the keg before going up into the tower to the tap. I get that the tower might be warmer and there might be an initial burst of foam because of that, but with glass tilted, and cold beer flowing, foam, foam and more foam.
Again, sorry for all the detail, but I really can't find much in the way of a step-by-step for force carbonation. I understand the CO2 partial pressures we want to be at for specific beers, less carbonated for English bitters, more carbonated for German pilsners, but keg to glass seems to be my struggle at the moment.
