I have been brewing for a long time and finally got myself a keg system. I went from the secondary fermenter into the keg.(no sugar mix like I would for bottling)
I put the keg in my fridge and connected to the CO2. I set the pressure to 15 psi. I have to be gone for work so I was not able to shake the keg like I have heard about. It sat like this for a little over a week. When I tried a pour it was very strange. The glass seemed to pour up a head but when I tasted it the beer itself was dead flat. I even tried dialing up the pressure for a few days and tried again and it was still the same. what did I do wrong. Please help I am excited about kegging but this isn’t drinkable as it is.
Shake it a bit. There can be oils on the surface that make co2 absorption tougher. Also, how full is the keg? Above the co2 intake ?
My beers usually aren’t carved until 1.5 weeks.
Trying to “push” the CO2 into solution with the small surface area of the keg take time. Shaking helps to get it mixed in.
You could dial the pressure up a bit and shake to get it there faster. But you may overshoot your goal. Not the end of the world. Just disconnect the gas and pour until you get where you want to be.
An idea I heard from a friend. Get a 2nd lid. Drill a hole in the top and put a barbed fitting in the hole. Add some tubing and an air stone on the inside, maybe a couple SS washer for weight. Hook the CO2 to this to get it into solution faster.
A week may not be long enough to carb that beer! To quick carb I turn the psi to 30 and shake for awhile, then let it sit for another couple. Then turn the psi down to 8-10 and pour. How long are your serving lines or line. You may need to lenghten it. A short line will force the CO2 out of the beer. Good luck.
The serving line is about 2 1/2 to 3 feet long is that too short?
Yeah, that’s pretty short. I started with 5’, but got alot of foam. Now I run 7.5’ at 12 psi with no problems.
+1
Your lines are wayyy too short. Your beer probably isn’t undercarbed,all that carbonation is being released in the form of foam as it shoots through your lines.
Think of it this way, the 15psi is enough pressure to push the beer allllll the way through 5 feet of beer line and land with a graceful non turbulent drop into your glass. With only 2.5 feet of line, it’s flying through to the end with now too much energy since you’ve lost 2.5feet of restrictive hose.
Now if you had 10feet of line with 15psi, that pressure will be enough to make it the full 10feet, but the beer would either just trickle into the glass or take forever to fill a 16oz glass and would probably not create a nice fluffy 2 finger head.
I’m not sure what your setup is, tap tower or taps either at the same height or close to the top of the keg, but I would start with either 7ft of line for towers and 5ft of line for the latter.
I would start with 10ft of line. It’s inexpensive and you can cut it out, but can’t add it in.
You could also try adding the spiral mixing sticks from a 2 piece epoxy glue package. But you may need 3-4 with only having 2.5’ of line.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/LOCTIT ... Pid=searchNo need for drilling things, inventing things, and doing extra things to solve this. You don’t need carb stones and paint mixer gimmicks. This is all industry-standard stuff so no need to create solutions where there is no problem other than following the laws of physics 
Foamy-flat beer is a common beginner problem with common root causes. Most of the time the serving lines are not balanced to the temp and pressure that the beer should be serving at. You don’t need anything more than usually 6ft of 3/16" ID serving line, 36-38f standard liquid temperature, and properly carbonated beer. This varies per setup, but not by a number of feet of line. 10ft is excessive unless you are serving a very very highly carbonated beer, or have your serving system too warm (40f or higher)
Chances are the beer at 15psi is a bit over-carbonated, and your serving lines a bit too short. That is it unless your fridge is too warm.
The reason the beer is foamy, but flat, is that without resistance of a proper length and ID serving line, the Co2 starts racing out of solution in the lines and when it hits the warm glass it just foams more. Temperature is a factor because the liquid holds the gas better at colder temps, and any imbalance between temp and pressure combines to make your life tougher.
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Check the lines. They need to be about 6ft of 3/16" BEVERAGE line, not cheap hardware store stuff or the larger 1/4" lines provided with crappy cheap kegerator systems from big-box stores. Why they still ship them with that crap I don’t know but I change out every single one my friends buy.
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Make sure your fridge is cooling the liquid below 40f.
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Bleed the pressure off the keg. Shake the keg. Bleed the pressure off the keg. Shake the keg. Bleed off once more and then connect your properly set up and verified serving lines at 10-12psi at 36-38F
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Serve like a pro with little to no foaming that causes waste. Some systems that have uncooled serving towers may have a foamier first pour, but not enough to matter.
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Learn to force carbonate accurately. Either leave it connected at proper serving pressure for a few weeks, or learn a rapid process. Don’t connect at a higher than normal pressure and leave it for whatever time. That just leads to errors like foamy-flat beer
Read this http://thebeerjournals.com/carbonation.html
The laws of physics are simple here, so follow them and don’t think you need to invent anything. This is a global standard practice and hobbyists like us just need to follow it.
Thanks Dean. That is one hellava informational post. Very good advice for us keggers.
I probably couldn’t have explained or defined it as clearly as Dean did…but what he says is exactly what I do, and my kegged beer pours like a pro! Stick with the basics…they work!
Thanks Dean for that great explanation of the basics of the process!
Cheers all and happy holidays!
:cheers:
