Serving Pressure

What does everyone use as their serving pressure for kegging? Do you just set to the CO2 level you want dissolved in the beer and leave it or do you leave it until the level is right and then adjust to a lower PSI?

I prefer the set-it-and-leave-it method. Determine the pressure you need to achieve the correct volume of CO2 for the style of beer/temp of fridge. Set the regulator at that pressure. You can leave it that way for 5-7 days for the CO2 to equalize on its own, or you can shake/rock the keg under pressure for a couple of minutes twice a day for the first couple of days. By the third day mine are usually ready. I never mess with the regulator after the initial setting.

Setting the pressure too high to force carbonate faster can result in foamy beer if you're not careful. But there are differing thoughts on the matter and I'm sure plenty of people will chime in.

Edit: By the way, I drink my beer relatively slowly. A keg will likely last more than a month in my fridge. If you carbonate at one pressure and then set it higher or lower to serve, eventually the CO2 will equalize at the new pressure... changing the volumes of CO2 in the beer.

Yeah, the edit goes to more of my question. For example, I'm pressurizing a Weizen right now and the pressure to get appropriate CO2 is like 25 PSI. Seems like if I serve at that PSI it's going to fly out of the tap, but if I put it to 8 or so to serve, eventually all the CO2 will probably leave the beer. Hmmm, decisions.

Doesn't it also matter if you have 'actual' taps, or just picnic taps? I have picnic taps on my kegs, so I have to turn down the pressure to 2-3psi, bleed some off of the keg, and then serve. After a session I just crank the CO2 back up to where I want it for carbonation.

I thought with fancy beer taps you could leave the pressure turned up while serving.

You may use a longer hose between your keg and you tap or you may also use a hose with a smaller diameter. This will increase the restriction and reduce the beer flow for a given amount of pressure.

Check out the following link for more info on balancing a keg system:
http://hbd.org/clubs/franklin/public_html/docs/balance.html

Tybo said:

You may use a longer hose between your keg and you tap or you may also use a hose with a smaller diameter. This will increase the restriction and reduce the beer flow for a given amount of pressure.

Check out the following link for more info on balancing a keg system:
http://hbd.org/clubs/franklin/public_html/docs/balance.html

Click to expand...

Perfect! thanks a bunch. Now that I see this page, I believe I've seen something like this prior to starting out kegging and it didn't sink in at the time.