My beer isn't fizzy enough! Forced carbonation issues

Stu said:

OK, actually, it is. In that it foams and has a decent head (and retention). I'm aware much of this is to do with the recipe and as I use both oats and wheat in my NEIPAs, they come out nicely that way.

But they're flat.

Previously, I bottled my beer from a bucket FV and used to put half a teaspoon of sugar in each bottle and the carbonation was perfect.
I've now moved onto pressure fermenting and using kegs.

At this stage;

1. I generally ferment at 10psi. Some do more, some do less. Seems like a happy medium.
2. At the end of fermentation, I do a closed transfer into a corny keg.
3. I carb up to 20psi at room temperature and give the corny keg a good roll about (this was previously suggested to get more CO2 into the beer).
4. After getting it down to 4 degrees C, I then re-pressurise to 20psi.

Any ideas? It pours just fine, but it's flat.

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RichardM said:

How long do you roll it about for?

How long do you have it at 20psi and 4 centigrade?

From what I have read it needs to be more than 20psi for rolling and nearer 10 for serving.

I don't bother with rolling, I just set at about 10 to 15 psi (depending on how much carbonation I want) and leave it for a week, that works for me.

You could always use sugar to prime in the keg, you'd need a lot less per litre than when bottling.

[Edit]
Are you sure there are no CO2 leaks?

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Stu said:

I don't roll it around for long - maybe a minute or two.
At 20psi I've had it for about 2 weeks and 4c.

Yeah, I'm not sure I can be bothered with priming.

Yes, I'm sure there are no CO2 leaks.

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RichardM said:

I think you need to roll it around for quite a lot more than two minutes.

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Twostage said:

I’d miss out the 20 degree roll around. At 20c the CO2 simply won’t be absorbed by the beer. Think fish on a really hot day, they have to stick their head out of the water as O2 won’t dissolve in warm water. If you chill to 4c you can then pressurise to 20 and do the roll (I actually do a rock rather than a roll (I know)), I support the top on my foot and rock quite vigorously. You can actually hear the CO2 going into the beer. It squeaks. When it goes quiet the pressure will have dropped to around 10. I then pressurise to 20 and repeat a couple more times until the CO2 is no longer dissolving. At that point you can drop the pressure and serve carbonated beer.

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Paulus said:

Hi, I was hoping to hijack this discussion as I have a similar set of circumstances/questions though more about bottling and CO2 content.

I have just finished a Mangrove Jack Cider. It fermented under 3psi once it go going and it seems OK (slight vinegary smell but I hope that matures out).

Once the SG had levelled out for a couple of days I cold crashed it for 2 days and then transferred to a 19L keg and a 4L Oxebar. The Keg was full to the brim the Oxebar less so.

The keg has a carbonation stone and a float kit, the Oxebar just has a float kit.

I kept them both under 15psi at 6C for 4 days. I heard that is enough for the keg to have fully carbonated so I decided to bottle from there (I give loads away so bottles are a necessity).

I cooled the bottles to 6C (in the same place as the keg was) and filled with a counter pressure gun (short outlet which means that the liquid falls alot more than I like). There was some spume produced but really not much.

The bottles are all flip top so were sealed immediately.

I tried one of the bottles 2 days later and the cider is fine in taste(just needs maturing) but very low in gas. It is not a bad sensation as cider without much gas is fine by me but I did expect more.

My next brew will be a beer so I am worried that my current practice is not going to produce a great beer as far as gas goes. It will be a Porter (kit) and I normally use the gas calculator on the Dr. Hans website https://drhansbrewery.com/beercarbonationcalculator/

Should I be carbonating at a higher pressure with the knowledge some will be lost in the bottling or just for longer?

I have not tried the cider in the Oxebar yet as I know that needs at least a week.

Any advice is much appreciated.

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peterpiper said:

When botteling, I use secondary ferment in bottle, to do the carbonation. Trying to fill bottles with barely carbonated beer could take ages.
My method (using KingKeg & bottles), for a 23l batch, is: after primary ferment -transfer to keg; stir in priming sugar (130g dissolved in 200ml boiling water); bottom fill bottles, from keg via wand or pipe (when using a top tap keg, pressurise just enough to dispense beer). I generally go for around 17l in keg, and 6l bottled (in swingtops) depending number of empty bottles at the time. The correct sugar/litre needed, is similar for keg (full or part full) and for bottles. Varying sugar proportion, depending on style, eg more for a Hefweizen (from KingKeg, pictured).

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Ninja7 said:

Everyones set up is diffrent . I was carbing my pilsners at 15psi for 2 weeks and they were flat .
Always follow foxbats beer dirys and he was doing his pilsners at 20psi 2 weeks , i tried that and bang on .
There not realy realy fizzy ie american pilsners, just pub larger serving presure over hear .
Also to note my kegland regulater is off from day 1 .
I done a few tests and it way way off on settings so i had a few other spudys and valves and stuff laying around and kept upping the pressure on the kegland regulator and gas till it hit 20psi on the others ,
The kegland reg i have marked and its 30psi for a true 20psi reading .
The 20 psi presure vales on the apollo was the givaway at start that somthing was wrong as it nerver went off when i primed.
Now i set at 20 psi 2 weeks cold fridge and leave at 20 psi evan for serving , mines spot on nice head nice carb etc

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