Soft drinks in a keg

[valdid_shaw]

I’ve got a four-tap setup each with a corny keg, and as I’ve only got two beers on the go currently thought I’d put some lemonade through one.

initially seemed great - 9x 2 litre bottles of Lidl lemonade at 19p ago - £1.71 for a keg of lemonade. Put it on a low serving pressure and all seemed fine.

but now it seems all the carbonation is going into the pour - it fires out as if it’s at 1,000psi then once it settles down it tastes moderately flat. It’s like the lemonade is dispersing all the co2 into the air gap and retaining none!

Any ideas why or what I can do remedy?

 

[AnimatedGIF]

What diameter is the "beer" line? If you're using a low pressure to serve, I imagine this pressure is not high enough to keep co2 in solution, thus flat lemonade. You'll likely need to serve at the same pressure you would carb it at and use 3/16 beer line(assuming you'renotalready).

 

[valdid_shaw]

Yeah I’m using 3/16 - exact same setup I use with my beer and the line doesn’t particularly froth with beer in it. I’ll play with the pressure a bit and see if that relieves it - but I’m wary to increase beyond serving pressure when it’s coming out like a frothy bullet already! Thank you.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

Yeah I’m using 3/16 - exact same setup I use with my beer and the line doesn’t particularly froth with beer in it. I’ll play with the pressure a bit and see if that relieves it - but I’m wary to increase beyond serving pressure when it’s coming out like a frothy bullet already! Thank you.

Hmm, I am out of ideas in that case I don't know enough about how many volumes of co2 should be in lemonade.
Keep us updated on how you get on if you can

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I’ve got a four-tap setup each with a corny keg, and as I’ve only got two beers on the go currently thought I’d put some lemonade through one.

initially seemed great - 9x 2 litre bottles of Lidl lemonade at 19p ago - £1.71 for a keg of lemonade. Put it on a low serving pressure and all seemed fine.

but now it seems all the carbonation is going into the pour - it fires out as if it’s at 1,000psi then once it settles down it tastes moderately flat. It’s like the lemonade is dispersing all the co2 into the air gap and retaining none!

Any ideas why or what I can do remedy?

Soft drinks usually need more CO2 say 3 vols or more ( so more than your beer ).
This means you need a longer line.

Use this calculator to work out how much line you need.
http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/
Use this for your carbonation levels

https://drhansbrewery.com/beercarbonationcalculator/
I run soda water on one tap 6 celsius, and 30 psi ( about 4 vols ), then have an inline regulator to reduce the psi to 14 for the other beers. Note the 14 is high because of the non return valves I have on the ball locks which " steals " some psi.

 

[Graz]

Couple of potential issues here, as already mentioned fizzy drinks need a high pressure to retain carbonation, about 40 psi at fridge temperature (3-4 volumes CO2).

There's also not really any need to use 3/16" line. Pop doesn't really foam up in the same way beer does and by pushing it through 3/16" it may cause passivation releasing a lot of the CO2 dissolved in the pop hence the fizzy pour described and then flat lemonade. A run of 3/8" might be better in this respect and the length is not really relevant, might be better to keep it short.

 

[DocAnna]

For what it's worth, I now have one of the taps on my kegerator as a soft drink and am using diluting cordial in water and added salts to make up the juice, carbonating at 30 psi outside the fridge ambient which takes it to about 2.5 vols, then transfer to the fridge at 5 deg C and 14 psi which is roughly equivalent. This seems fine while not as fizzy as commercial soft drinks, we all seem to like it. I have a 3m run of 3/16 between all 3 of my taps and the kegs.

I do suspect the commercial lemonade is carbonated to a much higher volume 3.5 to 4 volumes from what I've read elsewhere.

Anna

 

[crowcrow]

What is your carbing pressure, serving pressure and fridge temp?

 

[simon12]

I don't know but I suspect there is something very different between a beer tap and a soft drink tap that is causing the issue.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

No I'm using an intertap to serve the carbonated water at temp and pressure as above, using 4mm internal diameter line.
It's not a case of a fizzy drink needs a higher pressure to maintain carbonation, it's physics. If you want your water carbonated at one vol set the pressure for the temperature and that's what you get. If you want beer carbonated to same level again same pressure.
Try and get it out of the container is where the issue occurs, but in the container the pressure is equal of CO2 in the liquid and outside ( the headspace) . Open the bottle and it is open to a new environment and may fizz out. Lemonade has very little viscosity and so the bubbles come out quickly and are large. Beer you see lacing on the glass all the way down if made and carbed well.

If you opened a bottle of lemonade and poured it in an environment at the same pressure as the carbonation say 4 vols no bubbles would come out of the liquid and it would taste completely flat.

 

[ppsmith]

Note the 14 is high because of the non return valves I have on the ball locks which " steals " some psi.

Oh! I hadn’t realised that. That might explain why my beers are usually less carbed than I would like (I’ve got a non return on each leg between the secondary regulator and the disconnect). Is there any formula for this anywhere, or is it best to just eyeball it?

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Oh! I hadn’t realised that. That might explain why my beers are usually less carbed than I would like (I’ve got a non return on each leg between the secondary regulator and the disconnect). Is there any formula for this anywhere, or is it best to just eyeball it?

No I haven't found one, my system just has the non return valves on the ball lock posts, again one for each keg. The inline regulator ( duotight ) also seems to affect the system, I added another gauge south of the inline so that I could see the pressure in that part of the system. It reads higher than the inline reg gauge ( also easier to see as outside fridge and bigger ) I had to just trial and error it and adjusted the inline reg slowly.

Sorry video only shot I have of it, ignore the crazy misbehaving readout on the stc ( it's broken and I was using it as a temp guide ), I now have an old
ispindel in the fridge which transmits to brewspy and is far more accurate.