Carbing up at serving pressure

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cnapierala

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Does anyone else prefer this method? I tried natural and force. Natural takes too long and force carbing seems to be inconsistent and gives a off flavor. I was constantly adjusting the psi to get it right which just made it worse.

With this method i hook up the keg in the fridge and let it sit for about a week and its ready to go.

Anyone want to share your prefered method and why?
 
I think most people actually do it this way except for the impatient ones that force carb. I think by far the easiest method of carbonation is to balance your lines, hook up the CO2 and come back when it's ready. Fiddling with the pressure just for serving is a PITA.
 
This is what the LHBS owner told me to do and it's always worked great for me.

I crank the PSI up to 35 for 40-48 hours. When I'm ready to serve, I turn off the gas, release all of the pressure in the keg, adust the PSI to 5, and turn the gas back on. All of my beers are perfectly carbonated with a nice head.
 
I just stick it in the kegger, hookup at serving pressure and wait for it. It's the simplest, although if I'm doing a kit & it came with priming sugar, I'll toss in 1/2. I have a four tap kegger & a big enough backlog (8 kegs in the conditioning cabinet), I don't need to rush anything.
 
just to be a stickler, I have to say that this is still force carbonation. The way I understand carbonation, your only choices are natural (either bottle or keg conditioned) or force (set it and forget it, or hasty shake).

but I do know what you mean.

Personally I like the set it and forget it method as well. Plus that way I don't need a second CO2 tank for conditioning. I can set my tank at serving pressure and have one to three kegs on tap and still have room in the cooler and a free gas line of my four way manifold for conditioning.
 
Just to clarify, you don't need a separate tank to force carb at higher pressures, you just need an additional secondary (if you want to serve one and force carb another). You can even get away with a simple two-output manifold or wye. Bring up your reg to serving pressure, open the valve to the keg you're serving and allow to equalize. Close the valve. Crank the reg to 30PSI, open the keg you want to carb.

You can probably pull about 3 pints on the serving keg before the pressure really starts dropping. If you're not serving during your 24 hour force carb, you're fine to leave it.
 
I tried the 'rapid' force carb method, and won't ever do it again. I was impatient, and had mixed success. Not worth it. Just hook up your CO2 and let it sit. There is no downside (if you can be patient) and basically nothing to go wrong, unlike the rapid force carb method.
 
FlyGuy said:
...Just hook up your CO2 and let it sit. There is no downside (if you can be patient)...
And there's the down side. :D

Maybe I'm unusually lucky. I've forced every batch I've kegged. My typical routine:

Wednesday night, rack to keg and place in kegerator to chill overnight.
Thursday morning, hook up the CO2 to 30PSI and give a good 3-4 minutes of shaking (shutting manifold valve to other kegs first). Place back in fridge and leave keg hooked up at 30PSI all day.
Thursday night, another 3-4 minute shake...set PSI back to serving and open all manifold valves.

Friday night, brats on the grill and ice cold beer off the tap. No complaints from my guests yet...

Again, maybe I'm lucky. :mug:
 
BierMuncher said:
And there's the down side. :D

Maybe I'm unusually lucky. I've forced every batch I've kegged. My typical routine:

Wednesday night, rack to keg and place in kegerator to chill overnight.
Thursday morning, hook up the CO2 to 30PSI and give a good 3-4 minutes of shaking (shutting manifold valve to other kegs first). Place back in fridge and leave keg hooked up at 30PSI all day.
Thursday night, another 3-4 minute shake...set PSI back to serving and open all manifold valves.

Friday night, brats on the grill and ice cold beer off the tap. No complaints from my guests yet...

Again, maybe I'm lucky. :mug:

In all honesty, I followed your recipe for my first ever kegged batch of beer, and it worked PERFECTLY. But I haven't been as lucky ever since, particularly if the keg wasn't full. So clearly there is no 'best' way to do it -- it just depends on your patience and comfort level. But I didn't mean to say this was a bad method -- just wanted to be sure that came across!! :)
 
FlyGuy said:
In all honesty, I followed your recipe for my first ever kegged batch of beer, and it worked PERFECTLY. But I haven't been as lucky ever since, particularly if the keg wasn't full. So clearly there is no 'best' way to do it -- it just depends on your patience and comfort level. But I didn't mean to say this was a bad method -- just wanted to be sure that came across!! :)
No mal intent taken. :)

I'm sure my lack of patience is going to bite me in the @ss soon....

Here ya go... :mug:

PS - This was that Friday night....following my force carb routine... ;)

APA_Kegged.jpg
 
BierMuncher said:
And there's the down side. :D

Maybe I'm unusually lucky. I've forced every batch I've kegged. My typical routine:

Wednesday night, rack to keg and place in kegerator to chill overnight.
Thursday morning, hook up the CO2 to 30PSI and give a good 3-4 minutes of shaking (shutting manifold valve to other kegs first). Place back in fridge and leave keg hooked up at 30PSI all day.
Thursday night, another 3-4 minute shake...set PSI back to serving and open all manifold valves.

Friday night, brats on the grill and ice cold beer off the tap. No complaints from my guests yet...

Again, maybe I'm lucky. :mug:

so you bleed off the excess gas before setting it to serving pressure? I would think that keg is ready to blow after all that... ;)
 

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