I've placed this question in the stupid section because clearly I'm missing something and/or I'm dong something stupid.
We're a new 10 barrel brewery set up predominantly focussing on keg beer. Having come from a predominantly cask background, the way I've ever approached keg before was force carbonating each container individually, with the obvious inconsistent results.
Having moved to a new brewery, I've been researching method for bulk carbonating our entire batches. We have 2 x 10 bbl unitanks and 1 x 20 bbl unitank, plus the option of 5bbl open fvs and 5bbl grundy tanks. (I plan on being busy)
Problem I am having though is what seems to be retaining carbonation. I've brewed into the unitanks, sealing the vessel when approaching final gravity with a few points to go. Cool to diacetyl rest, pressure builds to around 1 bar before I crash cool to 0 - 0.5 degrees celsius, leave for a couple of days and collect/disgard the yeast. I don't get much carbonation of the beer at this point, so I attempt to top it up by running from the racking arm and back up through the bottom via an inline carb stone. After a few hours of doing this slowly, I have carbonation at a level that's reasonable, though I can only see it if I drop all the pressure out of the tank and pour into a glass. If I don't and pour straight in to a glass, obviously, I get just foam. If I keg, (this is done manually, via counterbalance), even though it's not foaming (by the looks of the racking line) as soon as I dispense on our test set up, although it pours perfectly fine, I have little carbonation or if I do, it last arounds drinking around 2/3rds of the glass. (Currently kegging into KeyKeg and EcoFass)
The something, or several things, that I'm clearly missing, and I'm scratching my head to figure out why.
My thoughts so far are:
Any suggestions, would be gratefully received. I'm completely willing to take anything on board and if it involves different processes or equipment, then so be it. I just want to get it sorted, obviously.
Cheers for your time.
We're a new 10 barrel brewery set up predominantly focussing on keg beer. Having come from a predominantly cask background, the way I've ever approached keg before was force carbonating each container individually, with the obvious inconsistent results.
Having moved to a new brewery, I've been researching method for bulk carbonating our entire batches. We have 2 x 10 bbl unitanks and 1 x 20 bbl unitank, plus the option of 5bbl open fvs and 5bbl grundy tanks. (I plan on being busy)
Problem I am having though is what seems to be retaining carbonation. I've brewed into the unitanks, sealing the vessel when approaching final gravity with a few points to go. Cool to diacetyl rest, pressure builds to around 1 bar before I crash cool to 0 - 0.5 degrees celsius, leave for a couple of days and collect/disgard the yeast. I don't get much carbonation of the beer at this point, so I attempt to top it up by running from the racking arm and back up through the bottom via an inline carb stone. After a few hours of doing this slowly, I have carbonation at a level that's reasonable, though I can only see it if I drop all the pressure out of the tank and pour into a glass. If I don't and pour straight in to a glass, obviously, I get just foam. If I keg, (this is done manually, via counterbalance), even though it's not foaming (by the looks of the racking line) as soon as I dispense on our test set up, although it pours perfectly fine, I have little carbonation or if I do, it last arounds drinking around 2/3rds of the glass. (Currently kegging into KeyKeg and EcoFass)
The something, or several things, that I'm clearly missing, and I'm scratching my head to figure out why.
My thoughts so far are:
- that either the pressure when kegging, is knocking the carbonation out of it.
- that my stone is too small/fine (it's only an inch barb and either I need to run through it for longer or increase the size for more surface area)
- or that the perceived carbonation when dispensed under no pressure, is just from agitation and it really isn't carbonated at all, which mean's I'm missing the point entirely altogether.
Any suggestions, would be gratefully received. I'm completely willing to take anything on board and if it involves different processes or equipment, then so be it. I just want to get it sorted, obviously.
Cheers for your time.
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