I kegged for the first time a week and a half ago. By my calculations for my helles, I should be using 12-13psi @ 45degrees F. I also am using a 4ft party hose and valve. When I pour the helles, it gets a head about an inch, inch and half high, but the beer is pretty much flat.... Any help would be greatly appreciated as this brew is for my rehearsal dinner next Friday.
Helles kegging
- Thread starter Deklin
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
I think with the showing of a nice inch of head shows there is co2 in solution. With a week and a half you should be fine for your rehearsal next Friday. With it being at 45 and pushing 12-13 it might be a little low. Push 14-15 the benefits of kegging is you can adjust on the fly!!
Low co2 will make a beer seem less fizzy. I wouldn't stress about it too much Moving it to 15 and taste it in a few days. Im going to assume that your beer is a little young as well.
It can take up to 3 weeks for the carbonation to stabilize using the set it and forget it method. I don't understand the science behind it at all but sometimes it seems like beers just act weird before they're fully carbonated. I'd give it until the weekend (assuming by next friday you mean March 18th) and see how it is.
When you are pouring the beer, are you pouring just one or have you done a couple in a row that ended up that way? Sometimes on that first pour you get a bunch of gas that was in the lines plus the room temperature line causes some gas to come out of solution. The line should be colder after the first pour so the second pour might be better.
Another thing to try would be to dial the pressure down to 5 psi (you'll have to vent the keg to make sure) and try another pour. It could be that the pressure isn't balanced because of the short serving line so it foams really bad as it exits the tap. Especially if the beer isn't fully carbonated you might have knocked out most of the carbonation with the foaming. The lower serving pressure will help with that.
If the lower serving pressure helps you can do that for the rehersal dinner, too. Up until the dinner I'd keep it at 12-13 psi and then drop the pressure to ~5psi for serving. Since the entire keg will probably be consumed at the dinner it won't hurt to leave the keg under 5 psi for a few hours. If it gets foamy again midway through, the pressure may have built up (due to off gassing) and you'll just have to vent the keg again.
When you are pouring the beer, are you pouring just one or have you done a couple in a row that ended up that way? Sometimes on that first pour you get a bunch of gas that was in the lines plus the room temperature line causes some gas to come out of solution. The line should be colder after the first pour so the second pour might be better.
Another thing to try would be to dial the pressure down to 5 psi (you'll have to vent the keg to make sure) and try another pour. It could be that the pressure isn't balanced because of the short serving line so it foams really bad as it exits the tap. Especially if the beer isn't fully carbonated you might have knocked out most of the carbonation with the foaming. The lower serving pressure will help with that.
If the lower serving pressure helps you can do that for the rehersal dinner, too. Up until the dinner I'd keep it at 12-13 psi and then drop the pressure to ~5psi for serving. Since the entire keg will probably be consumed at the dinner it won't hurt to leave the keg under 5 psi for a few hours. If it gets foamy again midway through, the pressure may have built up (due to off gassing) and you'll just have to vent the keg again.
TheHopfather
Well-Known Member
With a week and a half on gas you probably aren't quite fully carb'd yet. Might need a little more time. If you aren't happy with the carb level you can always bump it up a bit.
Personally I would think that your 4' beer line has something to do with it. If you're getting head but the beer seems flat you could be losing the CO2 in the head. You can test the beer line length theory by lowering the PSI when serving. Purge the keg, set the PSI to like 5 and pour a beer, if the beer has more carbonation you'll know your line isn't long enough.
william_shakes_beer
Well-Known Member
As others have said, the first pour can often be "different" than subsequent pours, since a quantity of the beer has been sitting in the beer line, not the keg. Next time, try pouring a second beer within 20 minutes of the first to verify that isn't skewing your results.
jmcquesten
Well-Known Member
4 ft of beer line is not enough. Use mikesoltys.com line length calculator and you'll see that you need more like 12 ft. Or, if you don't want to fix the problem the right way, you can play around with the lowering the pressure, purging, etc., but it won't be right until you get longer lines.
Some people will tell you that they run 5 ft and their beer is perfect, but usually that's because they are either settling for under carbonated beer, or they have flow control faucets.
Some people will tell you that they run 5 ft and their beer is perfect, but usually that's because they are either settling for under carbonated beer, or they have flow control faucets.
Lowering pressure didn't work either. It just reduced the head some. There's no bubbles coming from bottom of glass to the head after pour. I have a 12ft line on the way, so I'll try that next. I'm just not sure why it seems like there's no carbonation in solution
