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Thanks to Ross, I've now got myself a kegging setup. Got a fridge from my parents, rented a massively heavy CO2 bottle, got 2 kegs, pressure reg, lines, bits and pieces from Ross, and I'm away. A few teething issues with gas leaks and so on to sort out, but seems like i'm on my way now. Next step is working out consistency with carbonation

Well done mate, your only future problem now ( as i found out) is what to do with all those empty bottles.

Enjoy

stay tuned for the "who wants all these bloody bottles" thread

trying to play around with carbonation at the moment, the beer's a lager but it's as flat as an english ale, with a massive head. i've tried the Ross method, 300kpa for ~50sec then back off and see where the needle falls - but how quickly is the needle meant to fall? it only falls at all if i keep rocking it, and it's hard to discern a point where it slows down.

it's sitting at about 110-120kpa at the moment, going to leave it til tonight and see if it's fizzed it up. it's sitting at about 4c.

any tips?

Sorry mate no tips, but congrats on your setup. Got any magnum champers bottles to unload?

nah sorry


question for the keggers: the beer's currently at about 4-5c, and as i mentioned, as carbonated as an english ale. i'm after a bit more sparkle in it, being a lager, but all i'm achieving is head (can't believe i'm complaining about it )

i've currently left it on 20PSI / 1.4Bar / 140KPA. Should it be ok to let it sit like that for the day, then turn the pressure down, burp the keg, and set the pouring pressure then? what pouring pressure? there's only 2 feet of line and a plastic tap on it, all inside the fridge (waiting to upgrade that later when i 'renovate' the fridge).

Good job Keg!!

I got a nice shock the other night when i was offered 2 50L kegs.
When i asked how much he said, "nah, i'm not gunna use em!".
Just gotta wait till he remembers to bring em in now.

Woohoo!

right, now the keg is starting to piss me off lol.

i now understand COMPLETELY why there's so many carbonation trouble threads on here. and there's so much conflicting information, different rates for ales, lagers, etc... i just want a foolproof method of accurately FORCE carbonating..


Ross, i tried your method when i first started: 300kpa 50 seconds while rocking keg, watch til it stops just above 100 - assumedly once the gas is turned off. the thing is though - the needle would barely drop at all unless i kept rocking it a lot after turning the gas off. even then, it would only drop slowly. there was kind of a point where it started to drop slower, but i was easily there another minute or two rocking after the gas was off.

set the pouring pressure to about 40kpa, poured a beer shortly after, letting the froth inside all float to the top first - over half the glass was a dense moussey head, the other half was almost flat beer. tried carbing it up a bit more, then i just get a bucketload of foam out, and next to no liquid beer.

thought i might have over carbed it, so i burped it, shook it a bit, burped again, then left the pressure release open for about 20 mins.

NOW, i still get a shitload of foam, next to no beer, and the beer's flat when it does settle. i've tried different pouring pressures, lower and higher, and they're all useless.

any ideas? any theory?

I have always hit my desired results with my method which is hook up the keg ( in the fridge) and set preasure to 50 psi/ 350kpa, leave on that for 24 hours then drop back to about 8-10 psi/ 56-70 kpa for pouring ( let a little preasure out of the keg if necessary) pour and enjoy, takes a bit longer than ross's version but i always hit my mark spot on

chill the keg first ,then set the gauge to 280 kpa/40 psi ,leave it connected for 48 hours ,this is the easiest method forget the rocking and rolling routine ,sounds like you over carbed the other one ,burp the keg then pour the beer without the gas connected until it comes good ,then set the gas to 70 kpa to pour

chill the keg first ,then set the gauge to 280 kpa/40 psi ,leave it connected for 48 hours ,this is the easiest method forget the rocking and rolling routine ,sounds like you over carbed the other one ,burp the keg then pour the beer without the gas connected until it comes good ,then set the gas to 70 kpa to pour

i might try that on the next keg then.

i thought i had it before... i dropped the pouring pressure down to just a touch above 0 on the gauge, maybe .5 - 1 psi, and it poured a good beer... tried it again half an hour later, and all head again.

i've tried making sure the tap sits higher than the keg between pours to keep any formed CO2 at the nozzle to just be let out when the tap opens, and some does come out first... but then the beer's still all head.

wondering if it's somehow overcarbonated, even though it doesn't really taste like that.. just a mild carbonation, really small bubbles.

You've hit the classic trap for new players!

The thing about an overcarbonated keg is that it doesn't result in highly carbonated beer. The classic symptom is massive head and flat beer... now where have I heard that before?

To understand what's going on here, you need to understand a few things about how to balance a kegging system; it's not as simple as it initially seems. The primary consideration when balancing your system is actually the pouring resistance, which is the amount of pressure required to force the beer through the hose and out the tap. In your case, you have one of those picnic faucets from Ross, right? That tap has a really fat hose (wide inner diameter or ID), and a big fat, short tap that creates a lot of turbulence when you open it. What all this means is that your pouring resistance is really low.

OK, if you have a low pouring resistance, it means that you need to use a low pouring pressure to balance it. Either that, or replace the hose with a smaller ID hose or a longer length of hose.

OK, so we want a low pouring pressure (I have one of those taps, used to use it before I got my faucet, and I reckon you need a pouring pressure no higher than 50kpa, if not less). Now, having a low pouring pressure brings up another issue, one that you have touched on. If you carb your beer at a high pressure, then turn the gas down, the partial pressure of CO2 will be higher inside the beer than in the headspace. Now, gases always tend towards equilibrium, so if you have a higher partial pressure dissolved in the beer than in the headspace, it will slowly evaporate out of the beer which means that
a) your beer will flatten over time
b) you get gas inside the hose to your tap

a) is probably a bit annoying, and can really only be fixed by rebalancing your system (longer hose or smaller ID hose).
b) is also a bit annoying as you can get a messy, heady beer from the first pour after you haven't used the keg for a while. Subsequent pours should be unaffected though.

Have I confused you yet?

If you're still reading, I'll tell you exactly how to fix the problem now.

1. Turn the pressure down! Try 50kpa.
2. Burp the keg every half our or so to release more gas. You can theoretically rock the keg to speed this up, but I've found you just end up spraying foam out of the valve.
3. Try pouring a beer. As you burp the keg over time, the carbonation level and head pressure of your beer drops, and your chances of pouring a good beer will go up.

Really, all this is about learning how to balance your system. I think that seeing as you want nice sparkling beers, you're going to need quite a long beer line (with a small inner diameter), probably a good 3-4 metres. I have 2 metres myself, and I run my system around 50-75kpa.

I'll stop now

Oooh actually, if you want a better explanation:

Balancing A Draught System

excellent explanation rwh, REALLY appreciated.

all the issues i'm having make much more sense now. I think i'll be able to sort it all out - if not on this keg (which is about half gone already ), then on the next one.

i'll keep thinking about what to do with the tap situation... any possibility of installing a restrictor right before the tap somehow? what about holding the tap half open, or would that just create turbulence, leading to more froth?

my technique of late has been to burp the keg for the first drink of the night then pour at really low pressure - of course, this means the beer is going to get flat over time with all that burping.

What about kinking the hose and holding it kinked with a cable tie? guessing that won't work well either cos the remainder of un-kinked hose will still make it froth?

Yeah, restricting the flow by opening half way or kinking the hose will just create turbulence, and you'll get even more head. You want laminar flow in a long length of thin hose. Unfortunately it does mean that you do need to fork out some cash for some quality components (either a pluto gun or a tap). This is one of the situations where quality really does make a difference, and unfortunately that comes at a cost. You could see if you can get a pluto gun on ebay cheap I guess.

Your technique of storing at a high pressure and then serving at a much lower pressure is actually a really good stop-gap, and should work well for you, so long as you don't mind your first beer pouring a bit frothily. You can alway just pour half a beer, let the head subside and then top it up. Nothing wrong with that at all.

cool, thanks for that.

i'll put up with it for a while, then it's fridge-renovatin' time

my ideal is to have a couple taps and a drip tray on a freshly repainted fridge with the kegs inside... should i coil up some extra beer line length inside to balance things a bit?

cheers

KEG wrote:my ideal is to have a couple taps and a drip tray on a freshly repainted fridge with the kegs inside... should i coil up some extra beer line length inside to balance things a bit?

Yep, exactly.

Any written description on carbonating can get people a little lost in translation.
If anyone is having problems carbonating their beer correctly, give me a call & I'll happily go through it with you. It really is a simple process, just very daunting & confusing with so many different opinions being banded about.

Ross
07 32877225.

in hindsight ross i think your description is pretty spot on for what i needed (except for the pouring pressure, which seems to need to be quite low with the plastic tap), but i overcarbonated because i still thought it wasn't carbonated though, as it tasted flat (but massive head )

still VERY pleased at the time you spent helping me out - we talked for half an hour about it, and it would have gone a fair bit longer if i hadn't needed to cut it short to go out

was much appreciated, and i highly recommend ross to all on here

Ross wrote:Any written description on carbonating can get people a little lost in translation.
If anyone is having problems carbonating their beer correctly, give me a call & I'll happily go through it with you. It really is a simple process, just very daunting & confusing with so many different opinions being banded about.

Ross
07 32877225.

Mate, I think I'm gonna take you up on that offer . i've just purchased a keg setup on Ebay (present from santa ) should get it in a few days and have read alot on different techniques on "how to"- all a little confusing and would appreciate the expert advice.
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... mot_widget
What do ya reckon? - did i pay too much, or is that about right?

Looks like a great price to me!

I paid $330 for mine and didn't get two taps!