I have had some beer in a keg for two weeks now. I set the regulator to 25 for a week which the store I bought it from told me to do. The beer didn't carbonate. I saw another website said 40 psi for three days and I tried it. Still no carbonation. The beer comes out with a lot of head on it but the beer is still flat. Any ideas?
keg wont carb
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dogbar
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Is the keg cold?
The first thing I think of is the length of the lines- the big foam head makes me think that the co2 is being knocked out of solution and hence the serving lines are too short and probably the beer is too warm.
Yes - it sounds like you're losing all your CO2 during the pour. I had that problem. Like Yooper said longer beer lines may help. That fixed my problem.
Yeah if your serving your beer warmer which I do because I don't have a kegerator (about 55F) you definetly need a longer line. I also shake my keg to help it force carbonate which has helped me.
OK so I've tried the longer lines. No help. I kegged a new beer since and used priming sugar and co2 no carbonation. Its been in a fridge just over freezing so its really cold. My kegs hold pressure because I take the gas off and its there a week later. Any other ideas?
BansheeRider
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I read that certain regulators can have issues when cold. Since your beer is just above freezing maybe your regulator is having problems.
If you chilled the keg down to below 40 degrees and you know what pressure you need to get the volume of CO2 you want. Then set your pressure for that and let it sit for 10 days then try it. For example I have my temp set for 38 degrees liquid temperature with 10 feet of hose and I set my pressure form 8psi to 12psi depending on the beer usually 8-10psi. If you still have no carbonation how full is the keg if you are using Cornelius kegs you should be about 2 - 3 inch's below the gas tube. One other thing if I read your post right you said you used priming sugar that should work to carbonate it but you can't stick the keg in the fridge it got to be warm for the sugar to ferment out atleast 65 or higher and usually for 4-6 weeks to do it with sugar.
Yea that's a good point about the temp and yeast. Didn't cross my mind. So I finally got it to carb but after a couple beers the carbonation seemed to be less. I had it set to 25 psi for a week at 40°. Any thoughts? And after j pour a couple do I need to take the pressure up to 25 again or no?
No, once it's carbed up keeping it continuously at 12 psi at 40 degrees should keep it carbed up. It seems like it would be terribly overcarbed at 25 psi for a week, though, so I'm thinking something is very wrong with your regulator.
