Carbonating soda. Help

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tylo_k2008

tylo_k2008

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Ok So I have a 5 gallon corny keg. All set up now. I made rainbow root beer in it. It has been pressurized to 40psi for a week now.

where do I go from here?

Just wondering when I hook up the liquid line is it ready to drink. Do I have to let some pressure out of the keg or turn the pressure down at all before I do so? Right now I just have the gas hooked up and its fully pressurized co2 tank keeps goind down tho on the guage and I know I dont have a leak.

other info.. :off: Temp is at 37 degrees and I have 42' of 3/16 line.
 
I have just water in my keg, and usually put the gas on it, shake it off and on for about an hour, and by the next morning it's ready to make soda. I don't know if you need 42' of line, but I try to stay away from that discussion. Right now I have a picnic tap with 6' of line on it (don't know what size it is) and it does us pretty well.

All I can say is go ahead and hook it up and try a sample.
 
How are you dispensing it? Two of the best ways is with a real pre-mix soda faucet that has the restriction cone inside that you can dial in a perfect pour or, a European flow control beer faucet!
 
I have found it tricky to make highly carbonated sodas in kegs. Carbonating is relatively easy: pressure, temperature, and time will yield the dissolved CO2 seen in charts. Your numbers looks right - 40 PSI @ 37'F should yield about 5.1 dissolved volumes. For some reason, sodas have always taken longer to carbonate than my beers when I do the standard hook-em-up, let-em-sit method. I've had good results by shaking the keg. Go nuts! Many seltzer makers prefer carbing at 60-100 PSI.

The really tricky part is dispensing this mess. I've tried ridiculously long dispense hoses (20' of 3/16" vinyl, which should give enough resistance to counter 44 PSI) with no luck. Reducing head pressure just slowed the rate of foaming. The flow restrictors I'm familiar with cost an arm and a leg. (http://www.cornelius.com/stellent/groups/web/@guest/documents/manual/002388.pdf). The flow control faucets help, but again, I tend to get foam.

My advice would be 1) shake the keg to carbonate. It won't hurt the soda. 2) Use really long dispense tubing (3/16" ID, 15-20 feet long), 3) reduce the head pressure when actively serving. Leaving it lower long-term will knock CO2 out of solution but it works in the short term. If you're dispensing through a tower and have lots of disposible income, 4) flow restrictors and 5) flow-control faucets will definitely help.
 
TheKeggingPart said:
I have found it tricky to make highly carbonated sodas in kegs. Carbonating is relatively easy: pressure, temperature, and time will yield the dissolved CO2 seen in charts. Your numbers looks right - 40 PSI @ 37'F should yield about 5.1 dissolved volumes. For some reason, sodas have always taken longer to carbonate than my beers when I do the standard hook-em-up, let-em-sit method. I've had good results by shaking the keg. Go nuts! Many seltzer makers prefer carbing at 60-100 PSI.

The really tricky part is dispensing this mess. I've tried ridiculously long dispense hoses (20' of 3/16" vinyl, which should give enough resistance to counter 44 PSI) with no luck. Reducing head pressure just slowed the rate of foaming. The flow restrictors I'm familiar with cost an arm and a leg. (http://www.cornelius.com/stellent/groups/web/@guest/documents/manual/002388.pdf). The flow control faucets help, but again, I tend to get foam.

My advice would be 1) shake the keg to carbonate. It won't hurt the soda. 2) Use really long dispense tubing (3/16" ID, 15-20 feet long), 3) reduce the head pressure when actively serving. Leaving it lower long-term will knock CO2 out of solution but it works in the short term. If you're dispensing through a tower and have lots of disposible income, 4) flow restrictors and 5) flow-control faucets will definitely help.
Click to expand...

I dispense soda with 30' of 3/16" line. It works well. That is really long, but I got it cheap from McMaster-Carr for 15 cents/foot.
 
There is always the old epoxy mixer down the dip tube trick to shorten the hose length. Just search the forums for "epoxy". It will turn up plenty of links to the correct mixer. They are really rather cheap too.
 

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