How to know how much pressure in the keg?

[GroosBrewz]

Brand new to kegging.. Got my kit the other day and have been doing some looking around.. I hear people say that they have 8 psi in their keg or or 10 psi in their keg.. How do you know how much pressure is actually in the keg? I have a 4 tap with a CO2 manifold with a 5lb CO2 tank and a dual gauge regulator.. Correct me if's I'm wrong, but the regulator only tells you how much CO2 you want to put in the keg, but it doesnt show you whats actually in there correct? This would be especially true if I had 4 kegs hooked up to one CO2 tank, right? Are there gauges for individual kegs? Sorry to sound like such a dumba#$, but I have no idea on this stuff.. learning as i go..

thanks:fro:

 

[Blender]

The regulator keeps a constant pressure in the keg. If you set it at 10 lbs it holds the pressure at that rate. If it falls below the set point the regulator will release enough CO2 to keep it constant. Make sense?

 

[underwaterdan]

Are you asking how do you know how much carb the beer has, like if it is holding 8psi. The answer is you really don't. Leaving a keg on 8 psi for a week or more will ensure it is getting absorbed.
If not read Blender's answer... both these together should answer your ?

 

[IrregularPulse]

Are you asking how do you know how much carb the beer has, like if it is holding 8psi. The answer is you really don't. Leaving a keg on 8 psi for a week or more will ensure it is getting absorbed.
If not read Blender's answer... both these together should answer your ?

You can most definitely know how much carb your beer will have by knowing the pressure going into the keg, and the temperature of the keg.

 

[homebrewer_99]

...Spundling Valve...

 

[underwaterdan]

You can most definitely know how much carb your beer will have by knowing the pressure going into the keg, and the temperature of the keg.

I didn't know that, how do you account for what is being absorbed?

 

[Bobby_M]

The gauge on the regulator would tell you the pressure in the keg if you don't have any check valves installed. If you do have check valves installed (may be a part of the ball valve assembly) then you could hook up a 30psi keg to a reg set to 5psi and it would continue to read 5psi.

The only time this gets to be an issue is if you do some kind of burst carb method where you apply elevated pressures to the keg for a while before setting it to your lower serving pressure.

 

[david_42]

I didn't know that, how do you account for what is being absorbed?

After a week or so, the beer will saturate and the gauge pressure will reflect the carbonation level. The regulator just keeps adding CO2 until the beer can't absorb any more at that temperature and pressure.

I have a gauge connected to a gas connector and a valve. I use it monitor primed kegs.

 

[GroosBrewz]

The gauge on the regulator would tell you the pressure in the keg if you don't have any check valves installed. If you do have check valves installed (may be a part of the ball valve assembly) then you could hook up a 30psi keg to a reg set to 5psi and it would continue to read 5psi.

The only time this gets to be an issue is if you do some kind of burst carb method where you apply elevated pressures to the keg for a while before setting it to your lower serving pressure.

I do have check valves installed, (4 tap manifold with seperate check valves).. And yes, (still figuring this out), last night, I lowered the regulator from 30 to 12 (serving psi).. and indeed, the regulator goes down, but I know that there is still 30 lbs in that keg.. So if I am correct, I want to bleed off
CO2 until the keg gets down to 12 PSI right?

speaking of the manifold, The check valves are pretty much just on/off valves right? You cant control PSI with these? In other words, I still need seperate regulators if I want to have one keg force carbing at 30PSI and another keg of homebrew at normal serving PSI.. Is this correct?

Thanks for all the info guys.. Just dont want to blow up my wife or dogs because I have no idea what the hell I am doing with my new CO2 tank and kegs!

 

[GroosBrewz]

A pic of manifold I was referring to in the above post.

 

[bottle-o-jeff]

I want to say that the valves are ball valves with a check valve in there. Since the system is such a low flow rate system, everything will eventually equilibriate (assuming the regulator set point is higher than the keg pressure).

So yes, your valves are pretty much open or shut. To get the reg to give you keg pressure again, you would:

1) make sure the regulator is set to serving pressure (or shut off),
2) shut all of the ball valves,
3) bleed off all of your kegs to nothing (if they're full you aren't wasting much gas by doing this),
4) set your regulator to serving pressure (if not already there),
5) and open up your ball valves again.

Then the kegs are a lower pressure than the regulator setpoint, and the keg pressures will creep up to the regulator setpoint within a few minutes.