Must gas stay hooked up to force carb ?

[hfxer]

I have a keg filled and ready to dispense. I force carbed it by leaving the
CO2 hooked up and the pressure at 30 psi.

I have another keg that I will be filling this weekend.

I'm wondering if I can pump the fresh keg to about 30 psi and then disconnect the gas. Will it still carb with out the gas hooked up all the time ?

I only have a single regulator and I will have to turn it down and hook it up to the keg I want to dispense.

On a little different topic:
Is it possible to add another gauge to my single regulator to make it a double.

I was looking at duals and triple reg's and it seems they are just new gauges added on to the place where the high pressure gauge is on mine.

My local brewing store staff said they didn't know if that was possible, and offered to order a dual reg in for me.

I'm looking for a less expensive option than that.

Thanks.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

If you pumped 30PSI to your keg, you should be fine to disconnect it for a while, but I would imagine that when the CO2 dissolves, the pressure is going to drop quite a bit. I would check it in a couple of days and see what the pressure is then... at around 40F, ~12PSI will give you good carbonation.

 

[Blender]

You can split your gas line and carb and dispense 2 or more kegs but they will need to be the same pressure. You can also get a dual regulator and run 2 different pressures to each keg.

I don't think one shot of CO2 at 30 PSI will carbonate the keg. I think you may have to leave it on the gas for roughly 36-48 hours.

 

[HairyDogBrewing]

I force carb intermittently.
Partly because I had a leak once and lost a whole bottle of Co2.
Mostly because I usually have 2 kegs and no splitter or manifold.

For the first few days, I use a tire gauge to check the progress and top off to 30 psi.
Once it starts to settle near the target I top off to a couple psi above the target.

The preferred method is to set the regulator at the target and forget it for a week.
But my way works, too.

 

[BigKahuna]

1 shot at 30 psi is a fun experiment...in 36 hours you'll swear your keg has a leak. The beer will soak up a good bit of the gas, making the pressure less and less down to nearly nothing. I am currently 1 split short for carbonating....so I go 30 psi shot, but hit it every day for about 3 or 4 days until it starts holding pressure, then It's good until I'm ready to tap it.

 

[abracadabra]

I do the same as Egolla for the same reason. except I don't check the pressure I just set the reg to 30 PSI and hit it every 12 hr or less if possible the first 3 days because as the pressure drops the absortion rate also drops. By day 4 the pressure is starting to hold but I still do it every 12 hr if possible but I can get away with once every 24 hrs by then. My experience is that after the first 24 hrs with no refresh the pressure has dropped to zero or near zero and this greatly increases the time frame required for carbination.

 

[Bobby_M]

I don't mean to be harsh to anyone because clearly there are a lot of different ways to get gas into beer but you'll all have a much more pleasant experience by adopting some kind of regiment that you stick to from keg to keg.

Carbonation is measure in volumes of CO2. If you have 5 gallons of beer and dissolve 5 gallons of CO2 into it, that's 1volume. 2 volumes takes 10 gallons of CO2 and remember that's at the beer temp and pressure as dictated by the carbonation charts.

Think about the volume of the headspace compared to the volume of the beer and you can quickly see how a 1/2 gallon of gas at 30psi will quickly be rendered useless. As it dissolves into the beer, the pressure will settle to about 3psi (1/10th). If you look up 3psi on the carb chart, you'd end up with .9 volumes at 70F (you didn't mention what temp your beer sits at).

I use exactly two different carb methods depending on the state of the beer going into the keg.

1. The beer has been aged in secondary long enough and I have a dispensing position available in the kegger:
Put the keg into the kegger at 43F, Set reg to 30PSI and leave it connected for 24 hours. Cut the pressure back to my desired equilibrium pressure (ultimately for the volumes I desire) and leave it there until the keg is empty.

2. The beer hasn't aged much in carboys and still needs some time. Put the keg into the kegger at 43F, Set reg to my desired equilibrium pressure (ultimately for the volumes I desire) and leave it there for 2 weeks, then start drinking.

----------Extra blah blah----------
I have contemplated a concept I'll call "single shot carbing" because there are a lot of new keggers that want to force carb without a refrigeration unit and still be able to serve it at a party. I don't really recommend it, but here's how it would work if IT COULD work

Assuming that your 5 gallon keg is about 5.5g actual, you'll have a headspace to beer ratio of about 1:10. Therefore, you can assume that any pressure you apply in the single shot will ultimately settle to 1/10th the pressure in time. Grab your carb chart (somewhere online like http://www.liquidbread.com/chart.html) and look up the volumes of CO2 you want in the temperature row that your beer is going to sit at. I'll presume we're talking about room temp of about 70F. Notice 2 volumes at 70F would take a constant 20 psi. That means in order to single-shot it, you'd need to set your reg to 200 psi and you'd blow the safety valve on your keg or reg before you ever got there. About the highest I'd go and still feel safe is about 60PSI.

So, 1/10th of 60psi is 6 and if you look at the chart again, 2 volumes can be acheived at 6psi when the beer is 38F.

The bottom line is, you can carb at room temp with constant mid pressure CO2 or do a single shot carb at high pressure and low temp, but not both.

 

[abracadabra]

I forgot to mention that you can pump up the pressure higher or you can simply rock the keg back and forth or shake the living daylights out of it under pressure to cause it to carbonate much faster.. like within 24 hours

So while the temp of the beer makes a difference the pressure makes a difference too.

PS I vote that Bobby should put his picture back up on his avitar I think I'll start a petition

 

[wildwest450]

I forgot to mention that you can pump up the pressure higher or you can simply rock the keg back and forth or shake the living daylights out of it under pressure to cause it to carbonate much faster.. like within 24 hours

Why would anyone shake the daylights out of their beer? If your going to take the time, effort, and pride in making your beer why can't you wait 4 to 7 days to carbonate? It simply makes no sense to me.

 

[Rick_R]

Why would anyone shake the daylights out of their beer? If your going to take the time, effort, and pride in making your beer why can't you wait 4 to 7 days to carbonate? It simply makes no sense to me.

While I don't yet keg, I don't see why it wouldn't make sense. Granted, my plan would be to set it at my serving pressure and leave it until ready but if the shake method 1) doesn't hurt beer, 2) speeds things up, and 3) is something you don't mind doing, then what's not sensible?

Rick

 

[malkore]

Why would anyone shake the daylights out of their beer? If your going to take the time, effort, and pride in making your beer why can't you wait 4 to 7 days to carbonate? It simply makes no sense to me.

I don't rapid force carb...but sometimes you need to carb a keg fast that has already aged to peak flavor. LIke, you blow foam on keg 1 during a party and keg 2 is cold but you don't have a CO2 splitter.

AS long as you purge the headspace of the keg, you won't be damaging the beer by shaking it under pure CO2. it increases the gas absorption (just like shaking an open soda can increases the rate of gas exiting the solution).

 

[NewBlood]

So as far as room temp carbing goes....assume I'm not in any hurry...can I put 12 psi on a keg and let it sit for a few weeks to age as well. What then will happen to it when I chill it to serve?

 

[Finn]

I have a keg filled and ready to dispense. I force carbed it by leaving the
CO2 hooked up and the pressure at 30 psi.

I have another keg that I will be filling this weekend.

I'm wondering if I can pump the fresh keg to about 30 psi and then disconnect the gas. Will it still carb with out the gas hooked up all the time ?

I only have a single regulator and I will have to turn it down and hook it up to the keg I want to dispense.

On a little different topic:
Is it possible to add another gauge to my single regulator to make it a double.

I was looking at duals and triple reg's and it seems they are just new gauges added on to the place where the high pressure gauge is on mine.

My local brewing store staff said they didn't know if that was possible, and offered to order a dual reg in for me.

I'm looking for a less expensive option than that.

Thanks.

A single shot of 30 won't carb your beer but a half-cup of sugar AND a single shot of 30 will, in about two weeks! This is how I usually get my kegs ready to go in the Kegerator. It's like bottling your whole batch in one giant bottle. I'd rather not hang a bag over a tap for five or six days while it carbs ... also, all three of my beer kegs are on serving pressure only.

You can get a sub-regulator and run a line from your main regulator to it. That's what I do to keep 20 psi on the root beer, which needs it, and 5 psi on the regular beer. All you need is another regulator with lo-pressure gauge that's attached to a beer line stinger rather than a CO2 bottle fitting.

cheers!

--Finn

 

[HairyDogBrewing]

The pressure will drop when you chill.
According to this carbonation chart:
http://www.ebrew.com/primarynews/ct_carbonation_chart.htm
to have 2.5 volumes of CO2 at 38*F (12 psi)
you would use 25 psi at 60*F.

 

[david_42]

To make your setup a dual (or triple or more) pressure one, you'll have to add more regulators, not just gages. There are three ways of doing this:

1. Remove your high pressure gage & connect a second regulator.
2. Buy a second regulator with a bottle male and bottle female connectors. Connect it between the bottle and your current regulator.
3. Buy secondary regulators and run them off of the main regulator.

#3 is how I have mine setup. One primary set at #35 psi for soda (red valve), plus two secondaries supplying two kegs each.

 

[uglygoat]

what bobby said up to the blah blah... really i prefer to let it slowly carb over a weeks time, but in a bind i'll hose it with the high pressure.