I'm still kind of a newb (only been brewing about 5 months, 8 batches) and am just about to get into kegging.
Looking for someone to correct me if I'm wrong. From what I know, burst carbing seems to be an entirely valid method depending on your setup. The two concerns I saw in the OP are possible overcarbonation and the beer not being aged enough, so "why burst carb at all?":
1.) Is it not possible to get approximately the volume of Co2 that you want by using a pressure gage connected to the gas-in? The process I plan to do is the standard shake-at-30-psi method, very conservatively, then detach the co2, shake the keg more, read pressure gage, and repeat until I get consistent readings (the carbonation will be in equilibrium and it should represent the pressure that's in solution). Then reattach the co2, and repeat the whole process, until I get the carbonation I want.
2.) If someone has a small/modestly-sized kegerator, and a decent amount of fermentation vessels, it doesn't seem at all to be poor planning to age the beer in the fermenters and burst carb carefully and accurately. In fact, that would seem to make the most efficient use of a kegging system by having only ready or almost ready (cold crashing, etc) beers hooked up. Kegging equipment gets expensive the more servicable kegs you add to the system. Buckets are cheap.
The first post in this thread seems very down on burst-carbing, but to me it seems that it can represent a great solution to make the most out of one's equipment. I'm posting this because I may be missing something, so if I am, please let me know!
Thanks!
Looking for someone to correct me if I'm wrong. From what I know, burst carbing seems to be an entirely valid method depending on your setup. The two concerns I saw in the OP are possible overcarbonation and the beer not being aged enough, so "why burst carb at all?":
1.) Is it not possible to get approximately the volume of Co2 that you want by using a pressure gage connected to the gas-in? The process I plan to do is the standard shake-at-30-psi method, very conservatively, then detach the co2, shake the keg more, read pressure gage, and repeat until I get consistent readings (the carbonation will be in equilibrium and it should represent the pressure that's in solution). Then reattach the co2, and repeat the whole process, until I get the carbonation I want.
2.) If someone has a small/modestly-sized kegerator, and a decent amount of fermentation vessels, it doesn't seem at all to be poor planning to age the beer in the fermenters and burst carb carefully and accurately. In fact, that would seem to make the most efficient use of a kegging system by having only ready or almost ready (cold crashing, etc) beers hooked up. Kegging equipment gets expensive the more servicable kegs you add to the system. Buckets are cheap.
The first post in this thread seems very down on burst-carbing, but to me it seems that it can represent a great solution to make the most out of one's equipment. I'm posting this because I may be missing something, so if I am, please let me know!
Thanks!