Carbonating warm beer?

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jay29

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I am in the process of setting up my draft system. I am now in search of co2 cylinders. However, most of my beer, for now, will be cellar temp ales. In the winter I will just take the kegs out to the garage. Does the beer have to be cold to force carbonate?
 
Liquids, in general, are able to absorb higher concentrations of gases at lower temperatures. Regular kegging takes place around 40F, at this temperature you need 10-12psi of pressure for 5-7 days to carbonate the beer to around 2.4-2.5 volumes of CO2, which is around the carbonation of most beers. At warmer temperatures it becomes hard to saturate the beer with CO2. At 60F, you need about 25psi to get the same level of CO2 as a colder keg. Not to mention that you have to buy a longer beer line (10ft or more) to balance the pressure and keep the beer from foaming excessively. So you see, it becomes inefficient to try and carbonate beer at warm temperatures, it can be done, but in my opinion it's not worth it.
Take a look at this chart: http://hbd.org/clubs/franklin/public_html/docs/balance.html
 
I've been force carbing just fine at room temp for kegs that I can't fit in the kegerator yet. I use Beersmith to determine what the correct PSI is to get a desired volume of CO2 at 68 degrees and set my extra CO2 tank to that (like the porter keg I'm looking at now, set at 18 PSI). I let the beer sit for a week or more to carb it up.

It's really no different from using the yeast-produced CO2 of bottle conditioning at room temp - the pressure in the bottle/keg will be higher at room temp than chilled, but the volumes of CO2 dissolved will be the same. Once the keg is chilled the pressure will drop to near your serving PSI as long as you figured it right for the particular temperatures (room and fridge).
 
Buford said:
I've been force carbing just fine at room temp for kegs that I can't fit in the kegerator yet. I use Beersmith to determine what the correct PSI is to get a desired volume of CO2 at 68 degrees and set my extra CO2 tank to that (like the porter keg I'm looking at now, set at 18 PSI). I let the beer sit for a week or more to carb it up.

So after the keg is saturated at the correct PSI as identified by Beersmith, do you immediately set the regulator to serving pressure?

For example.. if I set my keg to 15 PSI to carb and periodically test using my external pressure tester and find that it is maintaining 15 PSI after two or three days of sitting without the being attached to the CO2... can I then assume my keg is properly carbed and set the keg to serving pressure?
 
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