Carbing Golden Strong Ale ( Duvel Clone)

[jpzep4]

Style guidelines say carb to 4+ volumes. I'm new to kegging and have only done about 3 batches so far. None of which were ever over 2.5 volumes.

Here's the simple (possibly stupid) question: BeerSmith says carb at 34 PSI to achieve 4.2 volumes. But for how long? When following BS carb guidelines does it assume set it and forget it method? And how long do you "forget" it when following that method?

Most posts I found when searching talked about setting to as high as 35 PSI for 36 hours then cutting way back but that seems to be for "normal" carb volumes, i.e. 2.5-3. volumes. I assume I could just double that and end up close but was looking for a little more precision

Thanks

 

[zachattack]

That would be the "set and forget it" pressure. I'd say 2-3 weeks and it should be OK.

That high carbonation is to style and should give you a pretty damn good beer (I love highly carbed tripels and golden strongs) but make sure your system's balanced enough so you won't get a glass full of foam. You'll probably need 30 feet of tubing to slow it down, or else you can look into the epoxy mixing insert (I think that thread's called "the cure for your short hose troubles")

 

[jpzep4]

Thanks for the reply. So just confirming, you're saying leave the beer on 35-36 PSI for 2-3 weeks? Just a bit concerned about overcarbing (which is clearly a relative term when talking about 4 volumes!!!)

Okay so let me show a bit more ignorance here. In reading about tubing length and epoxy inserts, I'm assuming that a beer this highly carbed is going to come blasting out, extremely foamy with my 5 ft length tubing, even if I back the serving pressure down to 5-6 PSI. Right?

Obviously, I've got this kegging thing all screwed up. On the first few kegs I've done, once the CO2 was in solution after a couple days 20-25 PSI, if my beer came out to foamy, I'd just bleed the keg, back the pressure down to about 2-3 and fill up what I wanted. Never seemed to affect my carb level in the beer, just a hassle. I guess that's an unbalanced system right?

I'll have to try the inserts or the tubing in the keg dip tube I read about

 

[zachattack]

The easiest and most consistent way to carbonate and serve is to always use "set and forget" for carbing, and make sure your system is balanced so that your carbing pressure is equal to your serving pressure. If you're at around 40 degrees, the correct pressure for both is usually 12-14 PSI for most styles. To balance the system, you just need to roughly cancel the pressure on the keg with the pressure drop in your lines. 10-15 feet of 3/16" ID tubing is usually enough to balance the system, but if you want a properly carbed golden strong (or any soda for that matter) you need to add some extra resistance. This can either be via longer tubing or something like the epoxy mixing inserts.

Turning down the pressure before dispensing can help, but IMHO it's wasteful (since you have to purge each time) and it defeats the whole purpose of a kegerator. I want to be able to walk over and pour myself a beer whenever I feel like it, not dick around with a regulator first.