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I seem to be having an issue that I haven't encountered before. My last two batches have all come out as expected. Once the ales have been packaged in 1/6 kegs, they were hooked up to co2 to carb. My cold room is a steady 53 degrees and co2 was set at appropriate level to reach the desired carbonation level. After several weeks, the carbonation seems to be exactly where I want it. The problem is arising when I chill the kegs to serving temp and the beer is coming out dead, flat and boring. What's going on? Before chilling the beer was coming out with a full frothy head and nice co2 bubbles. Could it be that I need to let the kegs chill for a few days so the co2 has time to absorb into the solution, due to temp changes? Any suggestions would be great.
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D Rave
Ravenous Brewing Company -
You should be carbonating at serving temperatures, in bulk, before packaging. Lots of threads on this site dealing with carbonation. Search and you'll find some answers. Good luck.Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager-- -
Lower beer temperature = increased CO2 solubility
You're carbonating at one temperature, where you see good dispense as it's relatively easy for CO2 to come out of solution, hence the head/bubbles.
Once you chill down, the solubility increases so the CO2 is more likely to stay dissolved, hence the unwanted 'flatness' & lack of head.
As Philip says, chill first then carbonate.Comment
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This may be a revolutionary concept. Why don't you come up with a target CO2 spec and then start checking the CO2 content?Originally posted by Ravenous BrewComment
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Here's a chart that will hopefully help you troubleshoot what you should be carbing your kegs at in your cold room to make sure you have the right volumes:
Hope this helps...Kevin Shertz
Chester River Brewing Company
Chestertown, MDComment
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Pretty much the same chart as the previous post, but hey, who doesn't like more references?
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Thanks for the excellent charts. Could you folks who do this for a living please explain to Ravenous how one goes about checking CO2 out of a keg?Originally posted by Beer_Nut
What devices does one need and what is the procedure? What are the safety issues?Comment
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We check the volume of our co2 with a Zahm.
Basically you hook it up to the sample port of your brite tank and fill it from there. You pop a valve, shake it up, then compare the pressure and temp readings to the chart and it tells you the volume of co2. I suppose you could rig a keg coupler to fill the Zahm, but they are specifically designed to clamp on to a sample valve. They are expensive but they are the cheapest way I know of to accurately check co2 volumes.Comment
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I've mentioned this elsewhere on Probrewer, but it bears repeating here (I hope!) - if anyone uses nitrogen, eg. for tighter head formation, etc. - then pressure-temperature CO2 analysis is flawed, since anything that relies on shaking gas out of solution will include the N2 in its CO2 result.
As a rough guide, 10ppm of N2 will give an error of around 25% on a typical beer level of 2.5v/v (5g/l) CO2.Comment
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Thank you all for the replies. Before I posted this I should have mentioned that I had already referred to the charts that were posted in this thread. In fact this Co2 charts have always been a reference that I use to carbonate my beers. I will do some other troubleshooting and let you know how I make out. Thanks again.D Rave
Ravenous Brewing CompanyComment
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