Basic ? about force carbing then pouring PSI

Hi Everyone.

I'm about to keg my 4th brew and I'm still struggling with a fundamental question....

After the beer is carbed appropriately, should I leave the keg at an ideal "pouring" PSI?

Here's what I did on the last couple brews.

Force carb @30PSI for 3 days, then back it off to 12PSI for about 2 weeks. These three beers were ales stored in a chilled mini fridge and tasted properly carbed at that point. I don't have a kegorator/tap set up, so I've been using a small picnic faucet to pour. When I'm ready for a beer, I find myself letting the pressure our of the keg, then adding enough pressure to get it to about 5PSI (hich seemed like a good pouring pressure), pouring the beer, then pump the pressure back up to about 12PSI, disconnect the CO2 tank, and leave it like that until I'm ready to draw from it again.

Couple questions:
1. Is it okay to disconnect the CO2 tank after it's carbed up?
2. After they are carbed, can I leave the kegs in the fridge at the 5PSI pouring pressure, or will the CO2 volume in the beer drop over time?

Perhaps I'm making this all more complicated that it needs to be....

 

Ideally you will carbonate and serve at the same proper pressure. There are charts that can tell you what pressure you need, and what line length you need for any given carbonation level (volumes of CO2) and serving temperature.

So let's say for your average ale you want 12lbs of pressure to get the beer at the right carbonation at the temp you prefer. Then you need to know how much line length of 3/16" serving line. There are larger diameter hoses, but those are for very long runs, like you might find in a brewpub or bar. The home kegging dude is goign to want the smallest diameter line and so he needs much less of it to prevent foam.

And yes, if you carb up a beer at 12lbs and then leave it as 5 lbs, the beer will tend to equalize and the carbonation will drop. Also changing the pressure is a PITA so it's best to adjust the equipment and find a nice balancing point where it all works great.

http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php

 

I started out disconnecting my CO2 after I was through drinking the beer each day. I did this because I was concerned about leaks.

Now I just leave it at pouring psi which is 10psi for me.

 

1. I think you're ok to disconnect it, if you prefer. That said, you really want to be serving at the pressure you'd like to maintain in the beer (ie 12PSI)
2. If you leave the pressure at 5PSI you will lose carbonation in the beer. As the keg has less and less beer you will get closer and closer to 5PSI. The liquid wants to reach equilibrium with the head pressure (5PSI in this case).

I just hook up my keg at 12PSI, wait a week or so for it to carb up, and then leave the tank connected and server at 12PSI.

 

Thanks for the tips! The only other complication is that I have 1 keg in a big fridge and another keg in a small fridge, but only one CO2 tank. I suppose I can carb both up and leave them at proper volumes and serving PSI, and just leave the CO2 tank connected to one of them. That would just require occasionally topping up pressure on the one that's not actively connected to the tank.