Corny carbonation help....

[Beermaker]

Ok, maybe I am a gimp, but, I am having a hell of a time carbonation my kegs. Once I fill them, i seal up the keg, then pressure up with 40 psi. And shake the crap out of it for a minute, then stick it in the cooler to let it cool and assimilate the CO2 in. But a month or so later, when I tap it.....flat! WTF? No leaks, holds pressure on my gauges. Just confuzzled I guess. Anyone out there help me out?

 

[barside laundry]

It sounds to me that you are hooking up the keg (to the co2), charging the keg with 40psi, then disconnecting the co2 from the keg. If you are infact disconnecting that is why your beer is flat. 40 psi (althought a lof of pressure) at one time is not enough c02 for 5 gallons of beer. When I carbonate I:

1. Transfer 33 degree beer to keg via siphon (cold beer carbonates easier plus chilling the beer in the secondary kills all the yeast and every thing drops yeilding a clearer beer.

2. Put on keg lid.

3. Hook up to CO2 and slowly open valve (regulator) until 30 psi is pushing on the beer. Do not hook up you tap because 30 psi could (although I doubt) hurt your tap.

4. With the co2 still attached to the keg...shake the keg, rock back and forth on the floor, lay on side and bounce each end of the floor. As you move the beer your hear more co2 passing through the regulator and working its way into the beer. That is why if you unhooked your co2 the gas that you initial put into the keg was asorbed in an hour or too and it was not enough.

5. More about step 4... I shake or bounce keg for about 30 seconds and then I repeat step 4 about 3 times maybe with a 2 minutes in between to rest my arms!

6. I will then put it back in the frig and keep the co2 hooked up with 30 psi on it overnight. The next day I reduce regulator pressure to about 6 psi and then pull bleeder valve on the top of keg (some beer might fizz out-no worries). I do this because up until I do there is 30 psi on the beer that could hurt my tap.

7. Hook up tap, tap a beer.

* if you are unable to move keg around while having it hooked up to c02 then charge it to 30 psi, unhook it from co2 and bounce and shake. then hook in back up and you will see your pressure gauge probably reads 5 psi or so. charge again up to 30, shake, repeat 2 times.

I hope this helps

 

[Tony]

Barside has you covered... Myself, I do the same thing every single time with great results.

After I fill my keg, I hook it up to the CO2 set at 10-14 psi (depending on the beer), open the valve allowing CO2 to fill the keg, shut the valve, and purge the air/CO2. I repeat this three times, then just hit it with the 10-14 psi CO2 and leave it for a week. So far this method has proven itself everytime, and I get a perfect amount of head each time, and complete carbonation.

Good luck!

 

[david_42]

Carbonation is measured by the volume of CO2 in the ale. Assume for the moment you have 4.5 gallons of ale in a corny. 40 psi in the remaining volume is about 1.5 gallons by volume (at sea level). This gives you 0.33 volumes of CO2. Typical carbonation levels run from 1.5 to 4.5.

Either of the methods listed above work well. Or you can toss in the priming sugar, since you're willing to wait a month.

 

[bikebryan]

Carbonation is measured by the volume of CO2 in the ale. Assume for the moment you have 4.5 gallons of ale in a corny. 40 psi in the remaining volume is about 1.5 gallons by volume (at sea level). This gives you 0.33 volumes of CO2. Typical carbonation levels run from 1.5 to 4.5.

Either of the methods listed above work well. Or you can toss in the priming sugar, since you're willing to wait a month.

If you just "toss in the priming sugar" then wait a month, you'll end up with a corny full of flat beer.

You need to pressurize the keg to seal the lid. If you just put primed beer into the corney and seal the lid, then wait, the lid will almost always leak. Pressurizing the keg is necessary to seal it. Since you need to use CO2 to pressurize the keg in the first place, and to provide serving pressure later, why not just use it to carbonate the beer while you are at it? It's faster and produces no additional sediment.

 

[david_42]

I've never had problems with lids not sealing, except when the o-ring was old.

 

[Beermaker]

Well, I hit all 8 of my stored kegs with 40 psi today, and shook the hell out of them for a minute. We will see what happpens tomorrow......

 

[ScottT]

This is an excellent link that will teach you all you need to know about force carbonation. http://www.angelfire.com/ks2/beer/homekeg.html

 

[Beermaker]

Coincidently, I have checked that site out many times Scott.

 

[Mikey]

Well, I hit all 8 of my stored kegs with 40 psi today, and shook the hell out of them for a minute. We will see what happpens tomorrow......

If you disconnect the CO2 line, you can expect the pressure to gradually decrease as the gas is absorbed into the beer. You need to KEEP it connected until such time as the beer is fully saturated and can absorb no more. Most people prefer beer that has absorbed about 2 volumes of CO2 (approx 10-12 PSI @ 34 degrees)

If you are storing these 8 kegs of beer for future consumption, the act of pumping them up to 40 PSI and shaking them achieves nothing except getting them carbonated sooner. You will achieve the same results by leaving them hooked up at normal dispensing pressure for a week or so.