BVIP not carbonating?

[PhillyBrewer]

I brewing Denny's BVIP a little while ago and I'm in the process of force carbonating it. Typically, 2.5 days at 30 PSI does the trick. I've had 3 gallons of it at 30 PSI for 3.5 days at ~40 degrees (whatever my kegerator is) and it's still totally still. Is there anything about this beer (eg. the bourbon) that would make carbonating it any different?

[Henning1966]

Try checking this thread on more beer it was just brought up over there not long ago. http://forums.morebeer.com/viewtopic.ph ... arbonating

[PhillyBrewer]

Wow. Thanks Henning. That's crazy that other people have experienced the same issue with this beer (while others haven't?).

I've never done the shake method and I'm terrified of overcarbonating beers. Any pointers on how much to shake it at what pressure and for how long to wait? I just shook it for about 30 seconds at 30 PSI.

[brewinhard]

I am not a fan of shaking my beer in the keg at all. Why would you want to stir up any sediment that might have been racked over into the keg. Just be patient and give it time. It will carbonate properly providing you don't have any leaks anywhere.

[PhillyBrewer]

In my experience, what little sediment there is will settle to the bottom of the keg and be removed with the first pint.

Someone in the B3 thread said they had it under pressure for 4-5 MONTHS at 12 PSI and it hardly carbonated. The fact that mine is still after 3.5 days at 30 PSI isn't something I think is normal.

[brewinhard]

Weird. Wonder what could cause that?

[PhillyBrewer]

Yeah, it's very weird. The only differences that I can see are the presence of bourbon and vanilla.

It's about half carbonated now 12 hours after shaking it for 30 seconds or so at 30 PSI. I'm gonna keep testing it so I don't overcarbonate it. Thanks again, Henning.

[alan_marks]

I'm curious, how could you overcarbonate if you know what the pressure of the gas and temperature of the liquid is? By definition carbonation is supersaturating a liquid with CO2...

And, if it is higher than you would like, isn't it just a matter of releving the pressure in the keguntil the gass reaches the level you would like?

Just trying to learn,
Alan