5gal of dark lager at 40 degrees with 5' of 3/16" ID hose pouring at a height of 4' out of a plastic cobra tap. Beer has been at 16psi for almost 72 hours for a wedding reception tonight. The beer this morning is still undercarbed. No leaks and more that half full 5 pound bottle as read by regulator. This is my first foray into kegging. What am I missing...patience, procedure, both...something else?
You might need to force carb it at like 25 psi. You need to put the keg on its side while the CO2 is hooked up at 25 psi and gently roll the keg for about 10-12 minutes, listening for the bubbling and hissing to stop. Then let the beer settle for about 15 minutes and put the pressure back down to whatever you want to serve at (I usually use 12-14 psi, but thats up to you ). I usually take to old fashioned way and let the beer carb at 12-14psi for a week to 10 days. Self carbing is easy to do, I just have enough beer around to wait the week or so for the carbing to take place. Good Luck, and have fun at the wedding!
Couple pieces of advice... 1) Crank it up and roll/shake as previously mentioned, and pray you don't overcarbonate it. Test often. If you can keep it cold while you do this, carbonation will happen faster (for a given PSI). 2) Never commit to providing beer for an important occasion like a wedding if you don't have your process down pat. Sorry if #2 sounds like preaching, but it's amazing how often the 'I have a wedding/party tonight and my beer isn't carb'd/my Co2 tank is empty' question comes up. Planning is a good thing.
Missed this on first read. The high pressure gauge does not tell you how much CO2 is left. At any given temp, it will keep the same reading up until the time it goes poof. It's becuase the CO2 in the tank is actually in a liquid state, and produces the same force until it's gone. Always have a backup tank. But if you started with a full tank, and this is your first keg, and you have no leaks, you'll be okay.
Thanks sidebordz for the info. Thanks for the insight on the HP guage. And I do appreciate the preaching. The beer is for me and my other bro-in-law to drink while we are cooking today and for the reception. It came out great. Actuall been planning this since last year, just got behind on time bc of my job for carbonation. I helped move 85-12pks of natty light last night and knew that I wanted something else.
Worked like a charm. Dialed back down to 6psi for serving. Little head nice crisp carbonation. Thanks to both of you. Now onto cooking the jambalaya.
