Carbonating PSI

When you guys carbonate with CO2, how do you do it. I am doing my first batch and have it at about 48degrees and 19lbs of psi. It looks like some people just do it at serving pressure. By the way, what is the best serving psi? Thanks

I just set mine at serving pressure and leave it alone for a few days. The 'best' serving pressure depends on style, preference, temp, and your system. This page looks confusing, but it's really not all that difficult.

If you just want to experiment, start with 10-12 psi and adjust from there.

rdwj's method is the easiest, but it takes about a week.

If you want to carbonate faster, chill the beer, increase the pressure to 30 psi, and shake the hell out of it for about 5 minutes. Decrease to serving pressure (10-12), and you should have carbonated beer.

Yuri? That fast?

Well I have devised yet another method.... I carbonate while my beer is keg aging. I put 3 sets of 30 PSI on the keg and detatch the gas each time. It usually takes 2 days for it to absorb 30 PSI. I like my beer carbed at between 12-15 PSI @ 34 degrees, well carbed and COLD. If you put 30 PSI on 3 dif times while you are "aging" your keg, by the time you hook it up to your 12-15 PSI it will be mostly fully carbed.

easiest sure-fire way is to use a diffusion stone. it will carb to the desired level in hours, with no shaking or wondering just exactly how much co2 went into solution.

just so you know though, just because you carb quickly doesn't mean that the beer is necessarily ready for consumption. that's something nice about bottling, you can't really drink it until it is carbed, and that takes time, so the beer is allowed to age more.

also, remember, everything is system dependent, so what i do may not be the best for what you do. you need to determine what volume of co2 you want in your beers, what temperature you want to serve at, and that will tell you what pressure to keep the beers at. remember that you also need to balance the beerline according to the pressure, use 3/16 ID smooth bore thick walled beverage grade tubing, and it will give about a 2 psi drop per foot.

so for my system, i keep my kegs at 40F, use 10 psi, which gives about 2.3 volumes of co2, and i use about 5 ft of line to the shanks/faucets. this gives a good pour for me. your system will most likely be different, and you will need to make adjustments to it yourself.