Is shaking a good way to find the end of set and forget?

[-CHRIS-]

I have my first Wheat keg in my fridge carbonating. The fridge is at 34 degrees so I have 13 PSI to attain 2.90 volumes of CO2. From what I read here, this should take 1-2 weeks to fully carbonate. I just went down and shook the keg and it readily accepted more CO2. This makes sense since I only kegged it 4 days ago.

What I am wondering is shaking at the 10-14 day mark and not hearing any CO2 diffuse in a good test of final carbonation or am I clouding up my beer every time I shake the keg?

Chris

 

[sandyeggoxj]

You are clouding up the beer. But if you shake it under pressure and don't hear anything then you have reached equilibrium.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]What I am wondering is shaking at the 10-14 day mark and not hearing any CO2 diffuse in a good test of final carbonation or am I clouding up my beer every time I shake the keg?

I don't know that it's a "good" test, but I suppose it'll work to some degree of accuracy.
And, fortunately, it's a wheat, so the clouding up thing probably doesn't hurt the style

Cheers!

 

[-CHRIS-]

Thanks, just what I figured shaking, while an accurate test, will cause cloudy beer.

Any benefit to a carbonation stone/lid during the set and forget process?

Chris

 

[kombat]

First of all, it's a Wheat beer, so it's supposed to be cloudy.

Secondly, if you want to speed up carbonation, do all the shaking at the very beginning (immediately after kegging), then leave it to sit still while it "rounds out" the carbonation.

Also, note that if you've set your psi to the desired level, then you cannot overcarbonate it, no matter how much you shake it. You can't force more CO2 into solution than is available from the regulator (13 PSI, in your example). Once the beer has equalized the CO2 in solution with the CO2 in the headspace (again, 13 PSI), then no more CO2 will go into solution, no matter how much shaking you do. The risk comes when you crank the pressure above the desired target and shake the keg (to try to carb it up even faster). Then you can overshoot your desired volumes of CO2. So just set the pressure at 13 PSI and shake all you want. You'll be golden.

 

[wilserbrewer]

FWIW, I have given up shaking kegs. IMO it is a pain in the @ss and doesn't work well, and doesnt save much time. Load keg into keezer and apply 30 psi for approx 36+ hours works far better! Yes, and even though the OP's beer is a wheat beer, there could likely be far more yeast in the keg than he wants in suspension in the beer. Just say no to shaking kegs IMHO.