no carbonation solved, force carb with CO2 not beer gas

likely this wont happen to many but i figured a quick thread for others may help.

I was mistakenly trying to force carb, slow method using beer gas. It wouldnt work, i had checked everything, pressures, gauges, lines, leaks, fridge temps, everything. The thought never even crossed my mind and in all my reading i hadnt come across this.

Yes, technically you can force carb with beer gas, but its gonna take a pile of pressure and some burping of the kegs. Much easier to just get C)2 and set it and forget it.

I am sure to many/most this is a no brainer, and now to me it is too, but it took a lot of looking to figure this out.

Hopefully my mistake will help someone else down the road solve their problems more quickly

Good call. However if you are wanting to SERVE on beer gas, then it is advisable to also force carb with beer gas. Trying to force carb on CO2 and then switching to serve on beer gas usually results in overcarbonated beer and horrible nitro pours. I know some can and do pull it off, but it can be difficult.

good to know, it surprises me because id think commercial breweries wouldnt use beer gas to carb and the pubs etc would to push it, but then again after this experience..... lol

However if you are wanting to SERVE on beer gas, then it is advisable to also force carb with beer gas.

Click to expand...

Not really. You can carb with CO2. Nitro does not dissolve in the beer so it is the CO2 that carbs the beer, whichever method you use.


I carb with CO2 but you do have to carb to super low levels. I set my regulator to 5 lbs to carb and let it sit for about a week or two and then purge and hook it up to the beer gas. Works great. You just have to be careful to not overcarb it.

dustinboyd said:

Good call. However if you are wanting to SERVE on beer gas, then it is advisable to also force carb with beer gas. Trying to force carb on CO2 and then switching to serve on beer gas usually results in overcarbonated beer and horrible nitro pours. I know some can and do pull it off, but it can be difficult.

Click to expand...

It's not that difficult. Just figure out what you want the CO2 final volumes to be, and then use a calculator like this one: http://www.brewersfriend.com/keg-carbonation-calculator/ to calculate the required CO2 pressure at the carbonation temperature. If you are going for a very low volume level, the pressure might come out negative. In that case you need to carb at a higher temperature, so that the required pressure will be positive. After it's carbed you can remove the CO2, and hook it up to beer gas at serving pressure. Better to hook up the beer gas before cooling the keg from carbonation temperature to prevent possible air suck back into the keg.

To keep a constant level of carbonation over the life of the keg, you need to keep the partial pressure of CO2 at the equilibrium value for the volumes at serving temperature. The required partial pressure is the value the calculator gives you plus 14.7 psi. The required gauge pressure for the beer gas is then:The addition or subtraction of 14.7 is needed to convert partial and absolute pressures to gauge pressures.
Brew on