Keg pressure Vs Serving Pressure?????

[Sarrsipius]

I'm carbonating a Belgian Dark Strong and I'm just curious how this works. A little background:

For years I've been a set it and forget it guy. I leave my C02 at 11psi for everything. Always works great. Beers carbonate fully in about 2 weeks and serve just fine. But with this beer I want to up the carbonation level. So I'm carbonating the keg at 22PSI. I've turned off the valves to my other kegs while I do this. Here's my question:

-When I lower the pressure back to serving pressure won't the carbonation slowly go down in the BDSA since the head pressure is lower? How do you maintain higher carb levels at serving pressure???

 

[Bobby_M]

You can't maintain multiple pressures without additional regulators. Also, 22psi is too high assuming the beer will be kept cold. You're probably looking for 15-16psi or so. Even then, you're going to need a good 10' of serving line to pour that.

 

[Sarrsipius]

You can't maintain multiple pressures without additional regulators. Also, 22psi is too high assuming the beer will be kept cold. You're probably looking for 15-16psi or so. Even then, you're going to need a good 10' of serving line to pour that.

Actually it's fine. I'm shooting for 3.5 vols so at 36deg beer smith recomends about 21psi.

 

[Sarrsipius]

So my assumption that the co2 will slowly decrease is correct. I think I will just bottle this batch from the keg and let it continue to age. Guess it's impossible to serve a belgian strong from a keg if you want it to style. oh well

 

[Yooper]

So my assumption that the co2 will slowly decrease is correct. I think I will just bottle this batch from the keg and let it continue to age. Guess it's impossible to serve a belgian strong from a keg if you want it to style. oh well

No, it's not impossible at all. It's easy. You just have to turn your regulator to 22 psi (or whatever the correct pressure is). It's just that in order to have one beer at 11 psi and one at 22 psi, you need a second regulator.

 

[Bobby_M]

And about 15' of serving line to slow that pour down. I think you'll have some trouble bottling a 3.5 vol beer off a keg. If you really want that, I'd go with bottle conditioning in true Belgian bottles.

 

[Sarrsipius]

thanks guys.