Force Carbonating 3 Gallon Keg??

[cubsfan61]

Hi. Just purchased a 3 gallon keg from Midwest. This is our first batch to keg. I watched a video on Northern Brewer (which used a 5 gal keg) that said to set the PSI to 20 for two to three days and then check the carbonation. I had it set at 20 for about a half hour or so and then began to think that with a 3 gallon keg in might not take as long or require as much pressure. So.. I set the pressure back to 11 PSI. That was earlier this evening.

What's a good pressure and timeframe for force carbonating a 3 gallon keg?

I don't want to over-carbonate.

 

[day_trippr]

The "good pressure" is a function of temperature and desired level of carbonation (referred to as "volumes of CO2"). For an example, a typical home brew pale or IPA, it's common to aim for 2.5 volumes.

Knowing that, you can refer to this carbonation table, find your beer temperature, scan that row to the desired volumes of CO2, and the corresponding column header will tell you what pressure to use.

If you simply set that pressure and hook up your keg, in a couple of weeks the beer will be very nearly perfectly carbed, with zero risk of over-carbing...

Cheers!

[edit] Forgot the whole 3 gallon keg thing. Short answer to that: it only affects how long it takes for a constant CO2 pressure to carb up the beer. Nothing more. And so instead of 14 days, your beer might be ready in say 9 days...

 

[sniperd]

If you just completely want to play it safe, set it to your serving pressure (probably 10psi) and leave it for a week in your kegerator. It's won't over-carb, it will cold crash and clean up nicely, and there is no chance to mess it up. It's usually what I do, I also have 4 kegs on tap and room to have 1 or 2 on deck. If I only had 1 keg, then maybe I'd go the shake boosted psi route.