Carbonating in Spike CF30

[Rob2010SS]

Hey everyone. Carbonating our first beer in our Spike cf30 (first time using this conical). I have the carb stone attached to the racking port with the racking arm pointed down, as instructed by Spike. I’m noticing that when the pressure is increased on the stone you can hear bubbles coming out of the racking arm and going to the top of The tank. I’m not talking large increases either. I increase the pressure by 2 psi on the regulator and it’s intense. I’ve gone to doing 1psi increases and it still does it. In the SSBT unitanks, the carb stone is inside the tank whereas with this one, it’s outside the tank and the travel path is the racking arm.

Those of you using Spike conicals, will it carbonate just fine this way?

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Hmmm, I've always used the stone with the racking arm pointing up.. guess I was doing it wrong, but my beer was carbonated just fine. I don't always use the carb stone, but when I do, my racking arm is up.

Maybe the sound from the pressure increase is the co2 trapped in the racking arm causing a large co2 bubble to be pushed out?

 

[Rob2010SS]

Maybe… not sure. Spike recommended the arm be pointed down but it seems like a lot of people have it sideways or up. As long as it carbonates fine I have no issue. Just want to make sure it’ll carb up. It was at 10 psi earlier today and seemed a bit low for 10

 

[Rob2010SS]

Hmmm, I've always used the stone with the racking arm pointing up.. guess I was doing it wrong, but my beer was carbonated just fine. I don't always use the carb stone, but when I do, my racking arm is up.

Maybe the sound from the pressure increase is the co2 trapped in the racking arm causing a large co2 bubble to be pushed out?

With the arm up, does yours not make an audible sound?

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Yeah I can hear it when I first hook it up and a little if I raise it... dont forget the wetting pressure of the stone, I believe is 4psi if I remember correctly. So if you're at 10psi on your regulator then your only at 6 psi on the other side of the stone.. again I'm using 4psi as an example, it might be 3...

 

[Rob2010SS]

Yeah I checked the wetting pressure before attaching and it is 4.

I was shooting for 9 psi at 37F which when adding that 4, that’s only 13, so only 3 psi more to go. Just seemed low knowing that.

I might go right up to 15, as the prv is set for 15. We’ll see.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Yeah, I wouldn't be afraid to set your gauge at 15 especially knowing the prv is there and 15psi gauge pressure puts it at 11 in the fermenter.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

I'd have to look at notes to see what psi I ran mine at but I'm pretty sure it was in the teens.

 

[FugacityBrews]

I've not paid much attention to the arm position when using the carb stone. It does make sense that you would want the arm pointed down, as the longer travel path would encourage dissolution.

Typically I'll set the regulator to 19psig (15 less the 4 psig wetting pressure) and I have noticed that I end up with around 10 psig in the unitank. I've had pretty good results with that. I typically leave it for 12-16h like that and it gets about 80-90% carbonated. Another 1-2 days in keg and it's where I like it to be. You're working with a lot more volume than I am, though, so I would imagine it would take a bit longer to get that CO2 in solution.

If it's taking too long, dropping the temperature will obviously lead to more favorable solubility for the CO2.

 

[Rob2010SS]

yeah I think I’m just going to plan on allowing it to carb in the tank for an extra 2 days or so going forward. Comparing the Spike tank to the SS tank, I feel like the carb stone on the Spike tank isn’t as effective because the co2 has to travel through that small racking arm, whereas on the SS tank, the stone is actually in the tank. Not a huge deal, it still works and now I know we just need a couple extra days.