Just racked my skeeter pee out of secondary and sweetened it to perfection…now i want to put it in one of my kegs and carbonate it for a BBQ next week. This will be the first thing I have ever kegged so i’m looking for some advice.
when i connect the CO2, set my desired pressure, and turn it on…I just wait for the hissing to stop and that’s when the pressure in the keg has reached the pressure I want (which should show up on the gauge at the equilibrium point) right?
I don’t have room in my fridge or freezer and I haven’t bought a separate chest freezer and thermostat yet so I can’t reduce the temp of the keg to a steady, cool temperature to aide in the diffusion of the gas into the liquid. What PSI should i set my gauge to if my house is a constant 75*F (not my choice, the wife insists…)?
How long should I leave it at that pressure?
How much PSI do I need for serving? (just FYI, I hope to have a jockey box built before the BBQ, if not I’ll put the keg in a standard keg bucket with ice)
[quote=“IrishPirate”]Just racked my skeeter pee out of secondary and sweetened it to perfection…now i want to put it in one of my kegs and carbonate it for a BBQ next week. This will be the first thing I have ever kegged so i’m looking for some advice.
when i connect the CO2, set my desired pressure, and turn it on…I just wait for the hissing to stop and that’s when the pressure in the keg has reached the pressure I want (which should show up on the gauge at the equilibrium point) right?
I don’t have room in my fridge or freezer and I haven’t bought a separate chest freezer and thermostat yet so I can’t reduce the temp of the keg to a steady, cool temperature to aide in the diffusion of the gas into the liquid. What PSI should i set my gauge to if my house is a constant 75*F (not my choice, the wife insists…)?
How long should I leave it at that pressure?
How much PSI do I need for serving? (just FYI, I hope to have a jockey box built before the BBQ, if not I’ll put the keg in a standard keg bucket with ice)
a couple days. just taste it every once in a while. shut off the gas, let the c02 out of the keg, add desired serving PSI for serving, pour and taste. reset to high pressure if you want more carb.
i had mine at 10 PSI last night and it poured well
Thanks. That chart (and every other chart I’ve seen) only go up to 65F though and I’m stuck working with 75F. Would a keg bucket filed with ice in a 75* house last long enough to force carbonate?
Is the equation in the table linear? I mean, can you get the slope and just apply that to a 75 degree temp?[/quote]
hmmm…i’m sure you probably could…I’m not very good at math but I’ll see if that’s possible and try to work it out or reach out to my math-savvy friends.
When you 1st put the gas on the keg, you fill the head space. It takes a couple of weeks for the gas to get into solution. You can speed this up by rocking the keg.
From 45* to 55* there is a 5psi difference on the low and high end of carbonation.
From 55* to 65* there is a 7psi on the low end and 9 on the high end.
Best guess for 75*, use 29-38psi?
The couple times I’ve used a jockey box, the results were poor. You will need at least 24hr to chill the beer for serving. 48 would be better.
interesting…I copied the chart into an excel document and used the drag down function to see what it would be at 75*F and 30PSI and it came out to 1.89, which I’m not entirely sure is accurate, but since excel is much smarter than I am, i’m sure it’s close enough.
Another thing that I’m wondering about…I connected my CO2 and set the regulator to 25PSI and let it equalize. Then I disconnected the CO2 and set my keg outside overnight (about 55-60*F) and then reconnected the keg to the CO2 with the gas shut off in the morning to see what the regulator would read. It read zero. I checked for leaks and found none, and gave the relief valve a quick pull and found plenty of pressure. The hose valve was open so the keg pressure would back flow to the regulator, but it read zero.
After that I left the hose attached, turned the gas on, and dialed the pressure up to 20PSI and left the hose attached. This was two days ago. Since then the needle has dropped down to 10PSI. I sample some of the SP today and while it flowed from the keg nicely, it was not carbonated.
So what’s going on? This is my first time kegging so I’m not sure what is supposed to be happening. I know i’m not working with ideal conditions, but I’d like to understand the data I’m getting from my regulator so i know what’s happening inside my keg.
(and just incase you feel like telling me to do it…I’m already in the process of buying a freezer to store future carbonating kegs at a much lower temp.)
After that I left the hose attached, turned the gas on, and dialed the pressure up to 20PSI and left the hose attached. This was two days ago. Since then the needle has dropped down to 10PSI. I sample some of the SP today and while it flowed from the keg nicely, it was not carbonated.
So what’s going on? This is my first time kegging so I’m not sure what is supposed to be happening. I know i’m not working with ideal conditions, but I’d like to understand the data I’m getting from my regulator so i know what’s happening inside my keg.
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Unfortunately, I don’t have any insight into this. I have kegged 2 batches in my life… so I’m on about equal footing. :shock:
Maybe a dumb question, but is your tank running out of gas? If the tank is running on fumes, that could cause it to be unable to maintain 20 PSI.
Is your regulator new… do you have confidence that it is functioning correctly?
I’m staying tuned to this thread… seems like a weird deal.[/quote]
CO2 tank is brand new, 5lbs, and recently filled (about 800PSI)…regulator is a brand new kegco dual gauge too.
@nighthawk: i know it takes at least a few days to carbonate, and I’ve been agitating the keg when i walk by it, but I’m still not sure what’s going on based on the regulator reading i’m getting. It’s been holding steady at 10PSI, but why did it drop from 20??? if half the CO2 had dissolved i could understand it, but when i dispense some, it doesn’t seem to have any lasting carbonation once it’s in the glass.
@nighthawk: i know it takes at least a few days to carbonate, and I’ve been agitating the keg when i walk by it, but I’m still not sure what’s going on based on the regulator reading i’m getting. It’s been holding steady at 10PSI, but why did it drop from 20??? if half the CO2 had dissolved i could understand it, but when i dispense some, it doesn’t seem to have any lasting carbonation once it’s in the glass.[/quote]
And, if you are keeping the valve open, you shouldn’t lose pressure at all. If the CO2 is being absorbed into the beer, it shouldn’t matter. The regulator is set to maintain 20 PSI so more gas should be sent to the keg. I don’t get it.
Unless you shake the living piss out of the keg for upwards of 30 minutes straight, while it’s cold, you will have an extremely difficult time getting the beer carbonated in 1 day.
To avoid coming back in a week and complaining about an over carbonated beer, set the regulator to the pressure you intend to serve it, chill to the level you will serve at, and leave it alone. Other than an occasional shake to help it along.
The only success I have had carbonating warm beer is to fill a keg, hit it with 30 psi to set the lid, turn down to 20 overnight and then forget to turn it off for two weeks. I can do that because I have a pipeline an no available space for another keg.
So it was an accident, I don’t remember the exact pressure and I really forgot the gas was on, but once I chilled it, it was perfectly carbonated.
