How do commercial brite tanks work?

[guinsu]

I've been reading a lot of threads here since I was having problems with my kegged beer being very under-carbonated even after a month carbonating with the "set and forget" method. There have been lots of suggestions on how to fix that, some of which worked for me.

I was wondering how the brite tanks in a commercial brewery work. From what I understand they carbonate a batch in days if not hours, I can't see a brew pub waiting a month or more to serve a beer as it carbs up.

 

[remilard]

Some will produce some or all of the carbonation naturally, by sealing the tank when the beer is above terminal gravity. Some will use sintered stones.

 

[lostboysbrew]

Some places use Carb stones.........similar to an O2 stone you might use to oxygenate your beer before fermenting. This allows alot of beer to be carbed in a short time.

The brewery I part time at closes off the blow off valve in the fermenter about a day before transfer, some pressure builds up. Once transfered, we put it in the brite tanks, with 15psi of CO2 and it usually carbs in about 12-14 days. Its a smaller brewery so once there is 6 or 7 styles at 7.5 bbl each.....we have the luxury of being able to wait a that time for it to condition.