I kegged two beers about a month ago. One keg I replaced the poppets on and it is carbonated the other I didn’t replace them and it is not carbonating. I have ordered more poppets and I am wondering, can I replace the poppets on the keg without oxidizing the beer?
To oxidize the beer you are going to need to splash it around and get O2 in it.
Just taking the post off to replace the poppet isn’t going to harm the beer.
How do you know the poppets are the culprit? Maybe it the lid?
Are you force carbonating or naturally carbonating? Did you apply 30+psi of pressure to seal the keg?
Yeh, I really have no clue what the problem is at this point. We replaced the poppets and that didn’t do anything. We just kegged a porter with all new gaskets, poppets and a new regulator…we’ll see what happens…
Check your pressure relief valve if it’s a ball lock keg. That’s been the culprit on several kegs of mine.
How do I go about checking to see if that is the problem and how do I replace that if need be? I still have little to no carbonation even with replacing poppets, gaskets and putting it on the gas/shaking it for 30 minutes.
spray everything down with a soap/water solution or starsan. Check for bubbles.
You are complaining about lack of carbonation. Bad poppits or PRV will not inhibit carbonation. They will cause the tank to go empty. If you are not loosing all your CO2 from the tank, these things are fine.
If you hear CO2 going into the tank and it’s still not carbonating, at what temp/pressure is it sitting at? If you are at 40* and 10psi, Shaking it a couple times a day should get you carbonated in 3-4 days.
If you are shaking it at room temp and 10psi, it will never get carbonated.
http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.phpOk. I will give that a try. I am not losing CO2. The bottle reading hasn’t really changed much. I have the kegs chilled to about 40-42 degrees at 15psi.
The high pressure gauge will read the same until just before you are out of gas. The only way to tell how much gas is in the tank is by weight or condensation on the side.
I have changed out the lines to ten foot lines and turned down the pressure to 10psi…I have noticed some improvement…I’m keeping my fingers crossed!!!
On the flip side, I couldn’t get beer to flow from a corny and after much frustration I realized food grade silicon is a really good poppet friend. It was a simple as a stuck poppet that needed lube. Just my .02 but maybe the oring isn’t sliding to allow gas to enter.
My $0.02, it takes forever for 10-12PSI to begin to carbonate a full keg. I usually crank it (but no shaking!) to 20-25 PSI for a day or two, and then dial it back to 10-12. Tried & true.
Couldn’t agree more. Well okay, I agree more… I just kegged an Innkeeper I’m hoping to have adequately carbed by Saturday. I put it in the keezer this am. I intend on dialing it to 20psi tonight and will check tomorrow night, same Bat time. Fingers crossed.
Yeh, I think we have a real problem. Nothing is really working…very little carbonation. Not much improvement. How frustrating!
Let’s recap: Your tank is not emptying, so you don’t have a leak. But the beer is not carbonating.
Is there pressure in the keg?
If you disconnect the gas to this keg, turn up the co2 gauge to 40psi then connect the keg, do you hear gas going into the keg?
How full is the keg? Some have said that if the liquid is right up to the gas tube it seems to take longer to carbonate.
Certain additives can cause a film to form on the beer making it harder for the beer to absorb the gas.
At 12 PSI my beer carbonates in about a week.
Does the beer pour when you open the tap? If so then you at least have CO2 in the headspace.
Does it foam up a lot upon pouring? If so, then you have CO2 in the beer and it is all getting knocked out of solution during the pour.
If you have #1 and not #2, then something less obvious is going on.
I’ve also heard the ‘film’ theory, basically hop oils or something has enough surface tension to resist the pressure exerted from the headspace and nothing gets into the beer. This isn’t a well studied or understood phenomenon in the homebrewing community, so I’m not sure if it’s real or caused by something else.
Turning up the pressure (20-30psi) should solve the problem. You can also attach a gas line to the beverage post (with a beverage QD!) to get around the ‘film’, if it’s real. In fact, this is how I carbonate every keg that goes into the kegerator.
This stubbornness to carbonate can also be caused (or worsened) by a finnickey regulator and/or gas distribution system. Regulators only turn on when there is enough pressure differential between the in and out sides to cause the flapper valve inside the regulator to open. This valve is not a precision instrument and has some hysterisis where the pressure will be lower but it won’t open. If you have multiple kegs fed from the same regulator without check valves, then any demand from the new keg could be fed by the other keg, resulting in a headspace pressure too low to get through the ‘film’, and not high enough to trip the regulator to give you any more gas.
