I have kegged my first batch ever about two weeks ago. I let it sit on 40 PSI in my fridge for 24 hours. Then at 20 PSI for an additional 24 hours. When I releases some head space, I had gotten my co2 to about 12 PSI. This being all things I have read online. So, here I was ready to pour my first ever kegged home brew and all i got was foam. I didn’t panic, but simply just slowly turned down the psi. I finally was able to maintain the foam at around 5 psi (is that too low?) Now two weeks later, my beer is still at 5 psi but when i drink it, it seems like it’s slightly over carbonated. Any suggestions or advice would greatly help.
What is the temp of the beer?
How long is the beverage line?
Picnic tap or faucet?
Likey you overcarbonatetpd it. Just keep pouring until it is correct.
You need to “balance” your system for the temp, vol of CO2 desired an line length?
It does sound like you over carbed by using that high of a preasure to start.
What temperature were/are you carbonating and serving at.
Right now at 5 psi the beer is likely pushing it self though on its own carbonation. It will eventually flatten out a little more like this, so no problem continuing.
How long is your liquid line?
I never force carb at that high of a preasure anymore. Very eratic. Time is too variable in the process, so 40psi could overcarb in 24 hours / 12 hours / 48 hours. Hard to tell.
Now I usually pick my desired carb lever and adjust the preasure to temperature and then add about 5psi on top for a few days. When my carbonation is just under what I want, I would usually purge, bring down to serving preasure and let that finish the job.
If you want to degass the beer you have a little just open the release. rock/shake the keg a bit. Release. Repeat. Let it settle down a bit (maybe over night) before serving again.
My fridge I believe is set around 37 degrees and my line is roughly four feet. I have a three tower faucet system right now. It’s weird because when I first sampled the beer it tasted great. perfect carbonation. Seems as time goes on the carbonation is getting more and more. Since I’m defiantly green on the draft system, what should my average psi be to dispense? Is that all based on temperature?
4 feet is pretty short I would go with a longer line. I Carb like that all the time and have never had a problem with a 7 foot line. I turn the pressure down to 8psi and serve though.
You need to “balance” the system.
1st you need to decide what carbonation level you want the beer at and the temp you will keep the fridge/freezer. Colder is better to keep any stray bacteria in check.
Let’s say you want 2.5 volumes of CO2 and will be storing the kegs at 35*. Referencing the carbonation charts
, that means your regulator needs to be set to 9psi.
Then to get a perfect pour, you need enough beverage line to drop the pressure. Resistance of the line is 1.5-2psi per feet. Let’s use 1.5. 9 / 1.5 = 6 feet of beverage line. Because it’s easy to cut line (and it’s cheap), start with 7ft of line and cut .5ft off if the pour is to slow.
+1, I’ll even keep longer and shorter lines around in case I want a lower carbonated English style or a higher carbonation wheat beer.
