Carbonating

[hawgdaddy]

About to Corny Keg my first batch. If I’m understanding everything correctly, let me tell you my plans and get your feedback. First I’ll keg. Chill to ~35* for 24 hrs or so. Connect CO2 and charge to 25* - 30* psi and agitate for a couple of minutes or so. Return to fridge. Leave for 48 hrs or so (testing 2-3 times during) Upon serving, bleed psi down and charge to serving pressure (approx. 3-6 psi?)

1. If storing after that, store charged at about 10 psi?

2. Bleed and recharge to serving psi each time?

3. Do I leave CO2 bottle connected while initially at 25 - 30 psi initially? And at 10 psi during storage? As opposed to charging and removing lines?

[rebuiltcellars]

How quickly do you want to drink the carbonated beer? If you can wait a week or so, just put the keg in the fridge, connect it to the gas at serving pressure and let it go. If you want to speed things up, you can shake or roll the keg around until you no longer hear the gas flowing in, then give it a day in the fridge. I never set the pressure over serving pressure since I once overcarbonated - that was a pain to correct.

[nighthawk]

Chill the keg WITH the CO2 connected.

Transfer the beer to the keg. Add 30-40psi to set the seals and check for leaks. Bleed the O2 out with a couple quick pulls on the pressure release valve.

Set the pressure to your serving pressure (carbonation desired, fridge temp and beer serving line length).

Shake the keg occasionaly to help get the CO2 into the beer. Depending how often you can shake the keg, you might have it carbonated in 4-5 days.

Setting the pressure above the serving pressure, you risk over carbonating the beer like rebuiltcellars mentioned.

[hawgdaddy]

Very helpful fellas. Much thanks! In keg now, chilling x 1 day, will add gas tomorrow. If I’m understanding things right, overcarbonating…on a typical ale, will only result in excess foam production. And can be corrected by hitting the pop-off valve a few times until desired carbonation is reached. I understand, as beer is drawn off the keg the carbonation will be further reduced due to the increased amount of headspace. I hope I’m getting this right…we’ll see…Thanks again!

[scottnu]

@HawgDaddy

Very helpful fellas. Much thanks! In keg now, chilling x 1 day, will add gas tomorrow. If I’m understanding things right, overcarbonating…on a typical ale, will only result in excess foam production. And can be corrected by hitting the pop-off valve a few times until desired carbonation is reached. I understand, as beer is drawn off the keg the carbonation will be further reduced due to the increased amount of headspace. I hope I’m getting this right…we’ll see…Thanks again!

Depending on how overcarbed the beer is, you may need to bleed off pressure for a couple days. Unfortunately, I speak from experience. An unexpected work trip pulled me out of town and I neglected to reduce the high carb pressure on an APA. It took a several days to reduce the level of foam. I wasn’t venting the pressure every 30 minutes, but I did make an effort to pull the valve as often as possible.

It was a bit irritating, but not a long term problem.

[mullerbrau]

[quote=“HawgDaddy”]I hope I’m getting this right…we’ll see…Thanks again![/quote]You will get it and then you will see how easy it is. Its one of those things that seems like there is a lot to it until you figure it out and then think, hey that was easy.