not sure if pressure is too high or too low

[1miniman]

Hey guys,
I, am a proper Newbie and am having problems with my first batch.
I made a batch of lager which i left in fermenter for 3 weeks and then moved too a pressure barrel with priming sugar. the pressure did build up but when i poor my self some my glass is about 75% froth and no matter how i try to poor i still get the same result.

is this a sign that the pressure in the barrel is too high or too low.
or is it something else completely??

thanks MM

 

[smokinj]

So it's in a keg? How long ago did you prime it? What temperature is it at? What are you using to serve it?

 

[weirdboy]

I would also add:

What temperature has the beer been at, and for how long?
How much sugar did you use to prime?
What is the total volume of beer?

 

[1miniman]

its a 23L batch and i used 90g of brown sugar.
its sitting at around 10C and has been in keg for 3 and half weeks
MM

 

[weirdboy]

What was the temperature of the beer before you kegged it?


Roughly speaking, it seems like there's an appropriate amount of sugar in there, but if you've been storing at 10C that can significantly extend the amount of time necessary to ferment the priming sugar. What happens is that the beer will ferment out the additional sugar you added to prime, producing CO2. This CO2 will then crowd into the headspace of the keg, building up pressure. Over time, this CO2 will then dissolve back into solution with the beer, which is how you get the bubbles, until eventually the vapor pressure of the beer matches the pressure in the headspace. So what you would see if you have a pressure gauge hooked up to the keg is the pressure will initially spike, then slowly settle back down until it stops changing. Has that happened?


The other part of this is how you are trying to serve the beer. Are you using pressurized CO2 to pour? If so, what pressure is the CO2 at? Are you using a beer engine or gravity? How long are the lines between the keg and the tap? What diameter are the lines? What material is the tubing made from? What is the temperature difference between the beer in the keg and the lines going to the tap? All of these things affect how the beer comes out of the tap.

If it's a temperature imbalance, you can usually get a better pour just by pouring enough to fill the lines with cold beer from the keg and cool them down a bit. On my system, this is about half a pint or so. After this, I get a much smoother pour than the initial bit, which is quite foamy.