buzzbromp

Recipes 

I have two questions regarding carbonation.

Lets say i take a keg of freshly fermented uncarbonated beer and cool it down in a fridge. Then I shake it up and hook it to a CO2 tank and pressurize it to about 35 psi for 24 hours. Then I purge the pressure and set it at 12 psi for use. Is the 12 psi the target pressure for that beer? If the beer got fully saturated with CO2 at 35 psi at the cool temp, wouldn't the CO2 come out of solution at 12 psi?

My second question is how do you put two kegs in a kegarator with only one CO2 line? If one beer style should have about 2.5 volumes of CO2 and the other should have only 1.7 and they are both at the same serving pressure, won't one be either over or under carbonated?


Thanks

Nanobru

Recipes 

Carbonation take place with only temperature and pressure, and will equalize given time (24-48 hrs). Add mechanical energy, such as shaking, and you can force carbonate in minutes. I will chill a 5 gallon corny keg down over night (actually its already cold crashed in the fermenter before xfer), Hook up CO2 at about 30 psi, and rock it on its side, back and forth 75- 100 times. Depending on your agressiveness, style guidlines and such, it may be more or less. Equalization is usually around 12 psi of head pressure for 2.5ish volumes. This is great for small bars and home brewers, because small keggerator setups require 3-6 feet of beer line to get to the tap, which just so happens to reduce the pressure in the line at the tap to give the proper pour. A longer run of line (10, 15, 20 feet) would require much higher head pressure in the keg to pour out the tap at the right pressure, and if you use CO2, it will eventually overcarbonate in a matter of days. To get around this, bars use nitrogen (which does not (kind of) dissolve into solution, or they use a beer pump. To use two kegs with one CO2 line, you must use a splitter. If you have a old ale (1.5ish volumes) and a hef (3ish), you will need dual regulators. But most people cant tell the difference anyway.

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Dougan

Recipes 

You can get different regulators per line if you wish to have different CO2 volumes per keg.

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buzzbromp

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Thanks, I'll have to wait on dual regs