Under Pressure and Feeling Flat

[WonderWez]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post.

I started extract brewing beer over a year ago, conditioning the beer in bottles. I never made one mistake with this method and the beers always turned out well.

Recently, I attempted to upgrade to kegging (supposed to be much easier, right?) and, from that point, nothing has gone right. I am having sooo many problems that I'm not going to list them all here yet, just one.

This is my setup:
2 Cornelius kegs
1 CO2 cannister
1 CO2 regulator
1 gas line with disconnect
1 beer line with disconnect
1 Dalex tap with flow control

I fermented the wort and put it in a keg. I purged the keg of oxygen and applied pressure with the CO2 regulator. Now, here is the bit that people may shake their heads at: I brew English style ales and like to drink them at near enough room temperature so I do not want a kegerator or keezer. The setup is in the garage and, when I began carbonation, the high temperature in the garage was 22°C (71.6°F). Because of the high temperature, I calculated that I had to apply a lot of pressure and set the PSI at 35.

I left the keg for two weeks. When I checked the keg, two weeks later (the temperature had dropped slightly at this point), the pressure guage on the regulator had maxed out; I have no idea how pressurised the keg was... a lot. I was slightly concerned. I turned off the tap on the CO2 cannister and the regulator and started to vent the keg. It took an age to come down to the point that I could get a reading on the gauge and I eventually had to stop venting because beer was spraying out of the vent. At this point, the keg pressure was around 80 PSI. I figured that I would wait a while before venting again.

In the meantime, I decided to give the beer a try, even though I knew it would be massively over-carbonated. Luckily, I have a flow control tap, which I adjusted accordingly. Well, the beer poured like whipped icecream but when the head reduced and I can sample it, it was flat as a pancake...

So, for the first time in my short homebrewing career, I am baffled.

My questions are:

1. What happened with the pressure, it was initially set at 35 PSI?
2. After two weeks at a massively high pressure, why was the beer flat?
3. I keep venting the keg down to 35 PSI but it creeps back up (the regulator is off), why?

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

1. What happened with the pressure, it was initially set at 35 PSI?
   
2. After two weeks at a massively high pressure, why was the beer flat?
   
3. I keep venting the keg down to 35 PSI but it creeps back up (the regulator is off), why?
   

1. Some regulators do experience creep. And will slowly work the psi higher. Not sure why but it does happen.

2. Your resulting beer poured as a glass of foam which when settled has knocked all the co2 out of solution resulting in your flat beer.

3. Your keg was so over carbed even venting it down to 35PSI that is only the pressure in the headspace of the keg. Once you relieve the pressure there then more co2 will come out of solution as the beer and headspace equilibrate to the new pressure level. Which apparently is still over 35PSI. until you have vented enough pressure that the beer and the headspace are below 35PSI you will notice the pressure returning to a higher than 35PSI.


Sent from somewhere to someone

 

[WonderWez]

1. Some regulators do experience creep. And will slowly work the psi higher. Not sure why but it does happen.

2. Your resulting beer poured as a glass of foam which when settled has knocked all the co2 out of solution resulting in your flat beer.

3. Your keg was so over carbed even venting it down to 35PSI that is only the pressure in the headspace of the keg. Once you relieve the pressure there then more co2 will come out of solution as the beer and headspace equilibrate to the new pressure level. Which apparently is still over 35PSI. until you have vented enough pressure that the beer and the headspace are below 35PSI you will notice the pressure returning to a higher than 35PSI.

Thanks, GilSwill!

I feel better about it now. I have 2 kegs that I have screwed up and I've actually had to buy beer for the last couple of months; haven't done that in ages.

The pressure is gradually coming down and, even though the brew is still flat at the moment, it is better than it was. Next time, I'll ease the pressure up slowly and keep checking it.

 

[kingogames]

I saw "under pressure, feeling flat" and thought, "That describes my life to a T!!"