carbing corny kegs
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Srceenplay
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I'm at 11 psi at 41 degrees.
Gas is on 24/7.
Gas is on 24/7.
I carb to about 10-12 psi and leave the pressure on the keg until it runs out of beer.
If you carb to desired pressure and then turn off the CO2, the beer will stop flowing after a few glasses poured and carbonation of the beer will drop. Input pressure needs to be held constant.
If you carb to desired pressure and then turn off the CO2, the beer will stop flowing after a few glasses poured and carbonation of the beer will drop. Input pressure needs to be held constant.
milldoggy
Well-Known Member
I force carb at 30 for 5 to 7 days. Unhook the keg till server and serve at 14
Holy shat, at what temp? Sounds like a surefire way to overcarb a beer if its cold.
milldoggy
Well-Known Member
Veedo said:
Room temp, and I have never overcarb doing this.
Sounds correct and is in keeping with this carb chart at the room temp you mentioned.
http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php
Badbrew I mispoke. The 30 psi at room temp is about correct according to the carbing chart. How long it takes to get to serving pressure is anybody's guess. I get brew nearly ready in a week by first chilling to whatever my fridge gets it down to, set pressure at 25 psi for two days, turn off reg, bleed pressure in the keg, repressurize to 12 for a week and the beer gets to where it should be, two weeks later is even better.
Yes, I've been thinking about getting one of those as well. Let me know how it works for you.
I got a Wit ready for a party in 4 days (plus 8 days in a primary). For the first day, I had it at 30+ psi in my cellar (about 55 degrees), followed by 30+ in a refrigerator for 24 hours. I then checked it, decided it wasn't carbonated enough (for a Wit), so did another 24 hours at 25-30, checked it again and reduced to a bit over serving pressure (about 15-17 psi). On the 5th day (night before the party), I bottled from the keg....tastes great.
Having said this, I would only do this for something that tastes good "young" and tolerates a bit of overshoot (if it had happened, which it didn't).
I was talking about at serving pressure or 65 F and 30 psi. Some people mention that their beers are carbed up in a week like that. After a week mine are flat as hell.
when you guys are carbing your cornys, how much headspace have you got in your keg?
Would having more headspace and turning the corny on its side to create more CO2 surface area to the beer carb it any faster?
Would having more headspace and turning the corny on its side to create more CO2 surface area to the beer carb it any faster?
I have various amounts of headspace- it depends on how much beer I put in there. Sometimes, it's more than five gallons and nearly up to the "in" diptube and sometimes it's 1/2 a keg. It doesn't matter.
Shaking the keg does carb it up faster, but I doubt turning the keg on its side will, since the idea is to get the co2 to dissolve in the beer.
For fastest carbing, a carb stone would work, or shaking the keg. I don't mind waiting 24 hours to drink a beer, though, and it takes that long to chill it anyway so I never shake it or use a carb stone or anything like that.
If I'm in a huge hurry, I stick the keg on the gas in the kegerator at 30 psi for 36 hours, then purge and reset to 12 psi. It's so-so carbed by then, but better a couple of days later.
Normally, I just stick the keg in the kegerator with the other kegs and it's ready in about a week.
DuckiesRevenge
Well-Known Member
Actually theoretically turning it on it side would potentially help it to carb faster under certain circumstances. Ultimately CO2 needs direct contact with the beer to dissolve into it and carb it. When you shake the keg what it does is creates little bubbles of CO2 which effectively increases the surface area of CO2 in contact with the beer (this is why it works so well, also why when aerating wort, why bubbling dissolves more 02 for happy yeast).
With that being said if you were to have a 9" diameter keg (lets assume 9" on the inside for simplicity). Then a full, half full or 1/4 full keg will have 4.5^2 times pi surface area for the CO2 to dissolve (~63.6 inches squared surface area). Now lets say we have that same keg half full lying on its side, and that the internal length of the keg is 22". The surface are should then be 9x times 22 or ~198 inches squared. Effectively increasing the CO2 surface area for the carbination to occur. One thing to note is that having it half full will be the most optimal for increasing the surface area. Once it is greater than or less than half full you will start to decrease the potential surface area.
All this being said, I would probably still stick with shaking since that will be even more effective (I'm not even going to try to do the calculations for that), because if you have it on its side there is the potential to have leak-back into the gas line (maybe??) which could lead to bad stuff for your air line. Not sure if this would totally be the case but better safe than sorry I think.
With that being said if you were to have a 9" diameter keg (lets assume 9" on the inside for simplicity). Then a full, half full or 1/4 full keg will have 4.5^2 times pi surface area for the CO2 to dissolve (~63.6 inches squared surface area). Now lets say we have that same keg half full lying on its side, and that the internal length of the keg is 22". The surface are should then be 9x times 22 or ~198 inches squared. Effectively increasing the CO2 surface area for the carbination to occur. One thing to note is that having it half full will be the most optimal for increasing the surface area. Once it is greater than or less than half full you will start to decrease the potential surface area.
All this being said, I would probably still stick with shaking since that will be even more effective (I'm not even going to try to do the calculations for that), because if you have it on its side there is the potential to have leak-back into the gas line (maybe??) which could lead to bad stuff for your air line. Not sure if this would totally be the case but better safe than sorry I think.
