Just ordered a carbonation stone. Carbonation in 20 minutes??? Any good?

Here are the directions from AHS... Just wondering if anyone has done this...

"To use a diffusion stone to force carbonate beer, champagne, or sparkling meads you will need a homebrew kegging outfit with carbon dioxide tank, regulator, lines and a ball lock or pin lock keg. Simply attach a length of ¼” ID tubing (approximately 24”) to the gas side dip tube of your keg with a worm clamp. On the other end of the tubing attach the diffusion stone. It should hold on just fine without a worm clamp since the fitting is barbed. There are charts available online and in books for exact levels of temperature and carbon dioxide pressure to achieve desired carbonation levels. An example for average carbonation in beer would be to chill your beer to 40°F. Adjust your regulator to 2 PSI, and attach the gas disconnect. Every 3 minutes increase the pressure 2 PSI until you reach 12 PSI. At this point your beer will be carbonated, but it wouldn’t hurt to leave it alone in the refrigerator for a few days under pressure."

 

A few days at 30 psi will carbonate it too.

 

or 1000 psi

 

I carbed 3 kegs at the same time at 10 psi, it took 5 days and a bit of patience.

 

Just set it at serving pressure and leave it for at least 4-5 days. Really, you should age it for 2-3 weeks, so there is really no reason to be in a hurry to carb the keg.

 

I aged in secondary... does this mean that I should be aging in the keg?

 

Folks, the question was not "What various methods do YOU use to carb your beer", the question was "HAVE YOU EVER USED A CARB STONE AND IF SO HOW DO YOU LIKE IT!"

 

It's my understanding that in order to age properly, you have to carbonate. So ya, after 2 weeks or so in the secondary, you want 3 weeks in the keg under pressure. I usually can't go more than a week without pouring a glass or three, but it does get better with time.

 

People fear change! For that reason you got those replys...I myself have never tryed one but it dose sound like a usefull tool.Have you tryed it yet in your setup?Seems to me if you had an unexpetd guest or party that wold be very helpfull getting some HB ready.

 

Ya, that must be the reason I tried something different with every brew I've done

 

Did a search and this came up. Seems like no one ever answered the question. Does anyone have any experience with a carbonation stone?

I just ordered the .5 micron one from midwest and tried it last night. Set it at 15 psi, came back in the morning and nothing. So I bumped up the pressure to 25 this morning and could hear the stone diffusing in the keg. Came back downstairs after about 30min and there was a significant amount of carbonation. Not quite done but definitly significant for 30 min. I'm thinking I'm going to have to put a lot of pressure behind it since the holes are so small. I set it at 20 before I left for work. See what happens when I get home..

Anyone else ever messed with one of these?

Edit: Just realized that this thread should probably be in the kegging section. Any way a moderator could move it for me?

 

I did this myself a couple of years ago. I did not think that it was worth the cost. If you have several kegs you need one for each keg. I took mine out and use it for oxygenating my wort now. It did make a difference in how fast you're beer would be carbonated, but I still believe that it take a week for the carbonation levels to stablize.

 

Not my experience at all. Beer is carbonated in a few hours and has maintained consistant carbonation throughout the life of the keg.

 

Never used one but to me it sounds like an unnecessary piece of equipment.. It is simple tof orce carb a keg in 10 minutes or less without a diffusion stone.. I cool my keg and contents to ~36degF.. Pump 25psi into the "out" side to allow it to bubble through the beer.. Shake vigorously for about 20 seconds then turn off the main CO2 valve leaving the regulator to read the pressure in the keg.. continue shaking until the pressure stops falling, this is your carb pressure for the given temp.. repeat as necessary to achieve desired carb levels.

 

whats the difference between these and the $2 air stones they sell at pet stores?

 

The only thing different that I can see is that the holes are much, much smaller.

And $18

 

Stainless steel vs plastic, ceramic or wood, food grade, duarbility, stainless can be boiled to sanitize as porus materials are hard to sanitize using liquid sanitizers.

 

I have one, and used it for my first keg a couple months ago. I chose to leave it attached, but when I checked the level of beer a week ago, I removed it. It pushes the CO2 through the beer from the bottom, causing it to foam. There was some interesting junk formations along the keg walls.

Next keg to be carbed will be in a couple weeks, but I'm debating whether to use it again and remove it after a few pints are pulled, or to just be patient and let equilibrium do it's job.

I would really reconsider using it for a hoppy beer, as the CO2 would probably scrub the hop aromas right out. CO2 from above would be much gentler on it.

 

Milo - carbing beer through a carbonation stone will not scrub out hop aroma, at the brewery I work at, and at most others, we carbonate beer like that in 150 barrel brite tanks.

To answer the posted question though -

I carbonate all my beer with a carbonation stone, it takes about 15 minutes to do a 5 gallon batch but my methods are a little more advanced than others, I think. Heres what I do -

Carbonation stone gets hooked up to the gas inlet inside corny keg. on the outlet side (where the beer normally flows out) I have a tube that hooks up to brass "T". On one side of the T is a pressure gauge (hardware store), and on the other side is a needle valve.

When I carbonate my beer I cool the keg down to 36, hook everything up and then flip it upside down. I set the pressure on my CO2 reg to 30 psi and let it fill up the keg. When I hear the flow of gas slowing down, I open the needle valve just a little, and keep opening it until the pressure gauge on the T reads about 25. Ill let this run anywhere from 5-10 minutes, shut the valves and then check the pressure.

This is basically like a miniature version of a brite tank - the increased head pressure causes a lot more CO2 dissolve into the beer right out of the stone, thereby decreasing carb time.

 

Wow thats a old thread you just brought to life....
That's all...
Igotsand

 

Quite the impressive, and authoritative, first post though, eh?

 

I just purchased one of these.

Tried it out last night with mixed results.

Here's notation for what I did:
- Attached the stone to the Gas-In tube (Was definitely a bitch getting this on while inside the keg)
- Racked the beer
- Turned on the gas directly to 12 PSI @ 40 degrees F
- I could tell the gas took longer to fill the keg and definitely spent more C02 than would normally fill on this initial push. This is a good thing since I think it means that the C02 was more infused in the liquid for this short period of time than having pressure directly on the surface.
- After about an hour or so of sitting, the carbonation was minimal, but definitely much higher than if I didn't use the stone.

I think If I purge a few more times and do this again, I could have the beer ready in just a couple of days.

For the next test, I am going to try a method that a local brewery talked to me about. They suggested the following procedure:
1. Setup the stone
2. Set the keg to the desired end-result pressure (10-11 PSI @ 40 degrees)
3. Let the C02 run through the beer and settle (1-2 minutes)
4. Then, bleed all C02 off of the keg while the C02 tank is still feeding (For about 30 seconds)
5. Then let the C02 settle for a couple of minutes
6. Repeat 4 and 5 about six times

This should get the carbonation very close in a short amount of time (Of course, more time is required for the solution to fully settle).

What JackRicci mentioned seems pretty reasonable to me as well if you want a really quick carbonation.

 

Based on the pattern of this thread to date, the next batch of replies will come around 2016

 

When you think you're close to finish and need to check the pressure do you bleed the tank to reset and then see if you've achieved your desired pressure? Or what do you do?

Mind posting a picture of your brass t device?

Great help and insight thanks.

 

Nope, took less than a year to be brought back to life this time. Must be some variation on Moore's Law that shortened the "necro-post" timeline.

 

cold the beer at 3C , then set the head pressure at 12psi , then slowly add the co2 trough the stone very very very slow and you will carb the beer in 8-12 hours i do this in 34gal of beer, once the head pressure rises a litte bit you are done

 

Jackricci has the type of system that I want. 15 minutes or less and you're done.

 

As the prophecies foretold: another resurrection! The "poor man's bright tank" you have described is used for carbing and then you transfer to a standard corny keg or can you pour from this contraption?

 

Jackricci, I think we'd all love to see a picture of your setup for carbonating. Please post some photos.

 

What the hell does turning it upside down do??

(And nice zombie/undead thread!)

 

Don't Let The Dead Have All The Fun!

Didn't see this the first time 'round, but I get what he's doing: he has the stone mounted on the gas side dip tube, pretty close to the lid end of the keg. He then connects a tee to the Out post - presumably with a full-length dip tube below - with a gauge on one side and a bleeder valve on the other.

Flipping the keg puts the stone near the bottom of the beer column. He then fills @30psi until the flow stops, then he dials his bleeder valve to provide a differential of ~5 psi. The end of the Out dip tube is sitting in what's now the "head space", he's basically bubbling CO2 through the beer column, using the bleeder to keep things moving and not hit equilibrium.

Note that this is indeed a bleeder valve: the bled-off CO2 is being shot into the atmosphere.
Such is the price of impatience...

Cheers!

 

regarding using a carbonation stone for infusing CO2 in wine making sparkling wine, I like to know if the bobles will be small when using such stone, or will it be bobles like in soda?

 

When you turn the keg upside down, the end of the dip tube is above the level of the beer. Otherwise, when you were bleeding the keg, you'd actually be emptying it instead.

 

Two questions for anyone that is familiar with Jackricci's method:
1.) What's the best way to connect the carbonation stone to the gas inlet side?
2.) Doesn't hooking up the pressure guage and valve to the liquid outlet side cause a little bit of beer that was inside the dip tube to come out and ruin the gauge as the gas is being bled out? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't want to ruin a gauge. Thanks!

 

Well, I'll let you know, as I'm trying this for the first time tomorrow. I've got about ten gallons of NE-style IPA in two cornelius kegs, so I'm hoping to not have to mop it up off of the floor.

 

If you were wanting to get some of the effect of Jackricci's method, I guess you could use the pressure relief valve on a keg that's the right way up to burp out the CO2 and get more flowing. I did try this once (with a long hose between the gas in and the air stone), but I'm not sure I did it right, or evaluated the results very well. I probably should have removed the hose and air stone when I was done as well.

The risk of both that, and to a lesser extent the upside-down method, is that the beer foams and comes out (either out the PRV, or into the gauge in Jackricci's method). I guess that's an acceptable risk with the PRV method, but it's best to make sure the keg isn't overfilled.

What you are trying to do is emulate a SodaStream machine on a larger scale, which rapidly carbonates by flowing CO2 bubbles through the liquid to be carbonated, and releases the pressure as it goes, so that the flow rate of CO2 bubbles stays up. You could make up a keg lid to do this for each keg - I've seen keg lids with a ball-lock and PRV on for sale. Once mostly carbed, change the lid out for a regular one, connect the gas to the normal inlet, and continue as normal.

 

As a follow up to my last post, I seemed to have pretty good success, and in the process I've realized how much I don't understand about this whole process.

I used the method where I turned the keg upside down set the gauge to 30psi, set the CO2 flowing and then opened up the needle valve and let it run with the gauge showing 25psi for about 10 minutes. I only had one corny set up with a stone, so I then transferred, under pressure, to a different corny and then carbed the 2nd five gallons, then transferred that. I had an obligation the next day, so I couldn't test until Tuesday. Put the gauge on each corny, measured 25psi, and here was where I was stumped. I wasn't going to draw a draft at that pressure, so I opened the release valve and brought it down to around 12psi. First draft was still pretty foamy, as was the second, but then it was fine. Beer was well carbonated and overall as hoped.

In terms of gauge damage, I think (I don't know) that this is a non-issue. I figure pressure gauges work by having the force from the pressure against some sort of diaphragm, right? The diaphragm has to be impervious to gases getting through, otherwise they wouldn't measure correctly. Ergo, if gases can't permeate, liquids shouldn't be able to either. Can anyone confirm I'm right (or a idiot)?

What I think I need to understand is exactly how to transfer the freshly carbed beer to the "serving tank(?)" corny, and the best way to bring it down to serving pressure and when. Maybe the process is simple and obvious, but it isn't to me. Any ideas?

 

Seems like it would work, but I think I still like the upside down keg way. You don't need to put a long tube on either the gas in or a rigged lid to get the stone to the bottom, and I suppose if you were really worried about beer out of the dip tube, you could pop a liquid out fitting on your tank and blow the dip tube empty. I think I'm going to attach my carb stone to a lid rigged with a gas post and then transfer the newly carbonated beer to a different corny. Figure I shouldn't even have to sanitize between each keg of a ten-gallon batch.

 

Bump. Lol...

 

Bump.

Anyone try doing this with one of those goofy carb-stone lids? Then you could just switch to a normal lid after carbing... still wasting CO2 of course.