Force carbonating in 5 litre mini keg

[Simonh82]

I currently keg my beer but always brew extra which I bottle for my father in law to keep in his good books (and because he lets us live in his house rent free). I've just bought a couple of 5L mini-keg growler type things with a plan to set him up with the kind of set up in this link.

I've got all the bits that I need on order but I wanted to ask about force carbonating in this type of keg. At the moment I either do the shake and roll trick to force carb in a few minutes, or attach the keg at 50PSI and leave it alone for about 20 hours which gives me a good level of carbonation.

With the mini keg I'd prefer to use the shaking method as I only have one gas line so would like to carb up the two mini-kegs and then leave mine attached to the gas overnight. I've seen conflicting information about whether smaller kegs carbonate quicker. I guess there would be a slightly larger surface area to volume ratio than on a standard keg so that might count for something but I'd like to know if anyone has tried force carbonating in these types of keg?

I usually attach the gas at 30PSI and roll the keg back and forwards for 5 minutes before venting the keg and attaching it to my serving tank at about 12 PSI. If I wanted to do the same with the mini-keg should I cut the time down that I roll the keg?

Thanks!

 

[Simonh82]

Any thoughts?

 

[ba-brewer]

If you just use the 12psi serving pressure when you shake or roll the mini keg you will not over carb the beer.

I have some 1.5 and 3 gal kegs and they carb up very fast with the set and forget method using 12psi. The 1.5gal will carb up in a day, 3gal a only a few days.

You don't need to leave the pressure always attached you can give the kegs a shot of gas and come back in a few hours to top if up with another shot.