hypothetical:

Say I have a 5g cornie full of flat (though yummy) beer at an average temperature of 37°F and I hook up the CO2 line at a constant pressure of 13PSI without any shaking of any kind. How long would it take for the beer to carbonate without any effort in my part? From different threads here I've read 2 days, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks. How about it?

Mr Wizard (somewhat unreliable authoritative source) says three days.

http://byo.com/mrwizard/1306.html

My limited, unmeasured experience suggests a week might be closer.

Sounds like my keezer in the garage. Leave it a week and you will be golden and life will be good.

EdWort said:

Leave it a week and you will be golden and life will be good.

Click to expand...

+1... In my experience 3 days doesn't cut it. Even when I had it hooked up at 30PSI for a few days, it still didn't seem to carb properly that fast. There's definitely something to be said for the "set it and forget it" method in that you will get the carbonation just right without having to mess with it, but it does take time. The high-pressure-and-shaking force carb method is undoubtedly faster but takes more effort and you have to do it right or you can overcarb.

I'm thinking of trying a combination of the two - setting it to the desired storage/serving pressure, like 12PSI, but still shaking it for quite a while. This is sort of what the BYO wizard recommends at the end of his article. In theory it should give the advantages of both - faster carb by shaking, but avoiding overcarbonation by only applying the correct amount of pressure for the desired carb level. For all I know, lots of people already do this...

in my VERY limited experience, I too lean towards 1 week. maybe a REALLY light beer with little body would 'accept' the CO2 a little more rapidly.

some people also force carb from the beer out side, since it pushes CO2 to the bottom of the keg, increasing surface area exposure of beer to Co2...which is really how CO2 dissolves into solution. more contact time and area = more absorption...hence 'shaking' to rapidly force carb.

One week.....

I think I'll do a test on my next batch. I'll try to keep as many of the variables under control as I can.

I've had good luck with 3-4 days at 30 PSI and ~50F. It's at least somewhat carbonated and drinkable by that time. As time passes (and I continue to drink the beer) I can tell when I've reached my desired level of carbonation and just bring the pressure down to 15 psi so as not to overcarb.

Connect one of these to 8" of tubing and connect to your gas in tube.