Force caring at room temp

[JasonWB]

Hey guys,

I don't have any more room in the kegerrator at the moment, but have a beer that is about to get finished and put into a bright keg for serving. It will be sitting and aging for a few weeks though before I'm ready to serve it around Christmas. I have a second co2 tank and regulator setup and was thinking about going ahead and using that to force carb it now at room temp so that it just has to be chilled before serving and it will be ready to go. I understand the calculators, but beersmith says it will take 26.2psi for the beer to carb properly at 70 degrees. My question is how long should it be left at that pressure at 70 degrees? If I need a beer quickly and it's in the kegerrator, normally I just crank up the pressure to around 30psi for a few days testing it along the way and then serve at standard 10-12. Should I take the same approach and leave the warm keg at ~26 for 2-3 days and then drop the pressure or just keep it at 26 for a few weeks? That seems like I would wind up way overcarbonated? If I can make this work, I will be doing it from now on to always have drinkable beer ready to tap so I appreciate any help. Let me now if something there doesn't make sense.

 

[JasonWB]

Sorry. Thread title should obviously have been force "carbing" at room temp. Stupid auto type. Although I do care about my beer too...

 

[poptarts]

if you have an extra tank just keep it at 26 if the beer is staying at 70. Then when you are ready in a month or whatever put it in the kegerator at serving pressure ~10 - 12psi.

 

[JasonWB]

Ok. Cool, so keeping it at that temp and pressure for that long won't overcarbonate it then?

 

[Yooper]

It'll take 2-3 weeks or so to fully carb up.

 

[b-boy]

Once you saturate the keg with CO2 you've essentially reached equilibrium. Your beer won't absorb any more CO2 unless the temperature drops, or the pressure increases.

 

[poptarts]

Ok. Cool, so keeping it at that temp and pressure for that long won't overcarbonate it then?

26 at 70 is exactly the same as 12 at 38 give or take. The only difference will be beer temp. Once at equilibrium if you take it off the gas and put in the kegerator the psi will drop to around 12. PV= NRT and all that fun stuff ya know. But yea 26 set and forget, then toss in in your kegerator and treat like you would any other carbonated keg.

 

[doug293cz]

Ok. Cool, so keeping it at that temp and pressure for that long won't overcarbonate it then?

No. You want to get a specific amount of CO2 dissolved in the beer. It takes more pressure at higher temperatures to get the same CO2 in a beer that lower pressure will provide at lower temps. If you put the room temp keg with 26 psi in the cooler, the pressure in the headspace will drop as it cools, but the amount of CO2 in the beer will change very little. It's a good idea to vent the keg after cooling, before attaching the gas line at serving pressure, as it will take some time (days) for the headspace pressure to drop from 26 psi to 10-12 psi when cooled.

Brew on

 

[JasonWB]

Understood! That's what I needed to know. Thanks everybody!!!