Just lucky I guess?

[swampbrewcrew]

Relatively new to kegging. I brewed a 10 gallon batch a couple months ago and kegged it in two corny kegs. I have a single regulator with a manifold to serve two kegs at the same psi, but I needed to carbonate one of them fairly quickly for a party a few days later so I did the 30 psi shake method for it and it was perfect. Since I didn't need the other keg, I purged it with co2, charged it up to 30 psi and unhooked it. It's been sitting for a few weeks and tonight I opened the pressure valve until it was down to 10 psi and tapped it. First pint was cloudy and yeasty tasting (it was consumed for research purposes only), the next one was clear and It's perfectly carbed. Is this a fluke, or can I reliably repeat it? It was carbed initially and stored at 40 degrees. Another question I have is since I hooked it up, charged it to 30 psi, and then unhooked it, I assumed there would be a big pressure drop from the beer absorbing co2 over the next few weeks. When I hooked the closed regulator to it tonight it was still reading 20psi, which could very well be a slight leak in the refurbished keg. I expected it to be at or below 10 psi, is this normal?

 

[jerbrew]

As long as there is no leak in the keg it should hold a head pressure if your beer is carbed. Furthermore, if the beer is carbed you don't have to jack it up to 30 psi, as long as there are no leaks of course. You should be able to carb it and store it. Congrats, I'm glad it worked out for you. Good luck in the future and make sure it really is sealed because if co2 can leave then at some point O2 may get in and spoil your beer real fast.

Another note, if your beer is carbed and you increase the headspace above serving pressure ,30 psi, you are going to loose some headspace pressure and create a new equilibrium but it will never lose all of it. And because the headspace is small you're not going to grossly over carb your keg. I'd bet the pressure was down quite a bit closer to serving pressure than the 30 it was stored at.

 

[swampbrewcrew]

The keg I'm talking about wasn't carbed when I charged it to 30psi. I purged it and charged it then it set up for a few weeks. I was going to be serving two other kegs for the party. I figured charge it to 30 and unhook it and hopefully it would be close to right when I wanted to tap it.

 

[jerbrew]

Oh well on that hand I think you got lucky.