Carb PSI

I currently have a 5lb co2 tank split between a keg of Sam Adams and my homebrew Cornelius keg. Last night I racked my homebrew IPA at room temp into the Cornelius keg and the plan was to shut the valve off going to my keg of Sammy, which i did, add 30 psi of co2 to my homebrew, shut the valve off going to it, turn psi down to 10 open the valve going to the keg of Sammy, let the IPA sit a couple days at 30 psi and then open the valve and push 10 psi which is the same psi my Sammy is set at.

However, when adding the co2 to my IPA i couldn't get the psi past 24. What gives? Could it be because the IPA was room temp and not cooled or would it have something to do with splitting the co2 between two kegs?

joesixpack said:

However, when adding the co2 to my IPA i couldn't get the psi past 24. What gives? Could it be because the IPA was room temp and not cooled or would it have something to do with splitting the co2 between two kegs?

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could be your regulator

and shooting 30 psi on your corny, then turning it off, isn't going to carb your beer...you need to leave the co2 on in order to force carb. you'll get a little carb to it, but not carbed up

i'd leave both connected at the same psi as serving and wait...otherwise, you'll have to shut the gas off to the commercial keg for a couple of days to keep 30 psi on your corny to carb

Do you have a dual body or single body regulator? It sounds like you have a single body but are trying to run 2 different pressures at once which is impossible. And read what hef said about turning to 30 then shutting off. Thats not going to do anything. You need to turn off sammy, turn corny up then let it sit for 24 hours or more, or better yet just leave them both at 10 and drink the sammy until your homebrew is ready in about a week.

+1 to the regulator being the issue.

-1 for not being able to force carb while disconnected.

Hit the chilled corny with 30 psi, or 24 in your case, disconnect it, roll it around for about five minutes (If you have a rocking chair, put the keg under your feet while you watch TV. ), charge it again, and let sit over night in the fridge. Do it again the next day. After that, hook the corny up to your set up and it should be pretty close.

Thanks for the input. I do have a single body regulator. I wasn’t aware you had to continually force the co2 into the beer. Obviously from my above post I thought I could put in 25 – 30 psi turn valve off and wait. Since I’m an inpatient person, i think I’ll turn off the valve to the Sammy and turn up my IPA to 25 or 30 psi and see where we’re at tomorrow night. It will probably be green but hopefully drinkable.

Usually you can get more pressure going if you remove the locknut on the threads. It requires taking the reg apart through. My reg will let me get to about 55psi before it bottoms out but my locknut is pretty thin.

If you want to force carb it, the colder it is, the faster it can absorb the CO2.

Bobby_M said:

Usually you can get more pressure going if you remove the locknut on the threads. It requires taking the reg apart through. My reg will let me get to about 55psi before it bottoms out but my locknut is pretty thin.

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I don't think I want to mess with my regulator. It was a royal pita getting the splitter on. Thanks anyway.