Help!! Carbonation by Agitation??? On a deadline!

[mindless2]

Ummm .... I'm such an idiot!
I was trying to carb my homebrew in my ferm freezer , but I knocked the probe out of the freezer... went out this AM to partially frozen beer...

I'm hoping it will all be thawed by tomorrow .
I needed that beer to be carved by Oct 24th!!
Can I carb by Agitation to catch it up and have it ready for my Halloween party on the 24th???

If so, what's the best way to do it??

Thanks
Todd

 

[aimlessbum]

Hey Todd,

I've had this problem before myself. Let the beer thaw out and go up to 33-40 degree range. Put it on a higher pressure. Say- 30, 40 (even 50) for about 12 hours. Taste it. If it's at a good carb level, then you're done. If not, give it another 6 hour dose. In my experience, shaking it is much too unpredictable, and needs for you to let it settle anyway for an extended period.

 

[ol-hazza]

A safe (ish) way to use the agitation method is to get the beer to serving temp (+/- a ° or 2), then crack up the pressure (I go to about 35 psi). Once you stop hearing the gas going into the keg turn off the gas at the regulator and agitate until the pressure reading drops below serving pressure.

Repeat this process, after about 5 times you will notice it takes more agitation to drop the pressure reading to serving pressure and eventually you wont get below it because you have reached your desired pressure.

If your beer at this time is colder than what you will be serving you risk overcarbing and vice-versa if the beer being warmer.

As you get close to serving pressure you can use less pressure to reduce the chance of over carbonation.

I have found this to be the best method for me to quick carb. As pointed out earlier though it does benefit from a few days sitting at serving pressure to settle out.

If you leave the gas on and shake it is faster and less work but increases the chance of over carbonation.

Most of the advice I have seen on here recommends the overnight at 30psi but this is the method that works for me and wanted you to have another option.

 

[mindless2]

Awesome thanks guys I'll give it a whirl

 

[day_trippr]

IF you want a fool-proof quick-carb method, start with our favorite carbonation table, find the temperature of your beer, then scan across that row to your desired carbonation level (expressed in volumes of CO2, with 2.5 being pretty much typical for most ales), then go up that column to find the proper CO2 pressure to use for carbonation.

Hook up your keg, dial the regulator to the prescribed pressure, then rock the keg until you don't hear any CO2 entering (it'll be pretty obvious). Leave the keg on gas at the same pressure, then after an hour rock the keg again until gas stops flowing. Repeat hourly or so until rocking produces no evident gas flow and you're done.

There's no way to over-carb the beer using this process, no matter how hard you try. The one thing to be careful of is allowing beer to back up the gas line. If your rig has a check-valve (not a shut-off; a backflow-preventer) you should be fine...

Cheers!