Kegged a High Gravity Beer - Taking a 7 Year Itch to Carbonate..

[MyCarHasAbs]

Here’s the setup:
2 kegs, both filled, 10lb tank pretty fresh, dual regulators. The second leg has a low gravity beer I just started carbing up about 4 days ago.

My RIS (9.5%) sat in the keg at about 8psi for 2.5 weeks. Sampled it, delicious.. but super flat. Learned my lesson, 8psi is wayyyyyy too low for the set and forget method. Bumped it up to 12psi for about a week.. sampled, still much carbonation going on. Cranked it up to 15psi for the last 4 days with shaking the keg. Sampled some this afternoon.. got a little bit of carbonation going on at long last but still not much. I doubt there’s a leak, the tank would have ran dry by now.

Do higher gravity beers just take longer to carb up or was the 2.5 weeks at 8psi basically worthless and it’s really only been getting worthwhile gas for the last 1.5 weeks?

 

[day_trippr]

My 110 point imperial stout (fg ~ 1.027-8) takes waaay longer to carbonate than any other style I brew (all of which finish somewhere below say 1.015). Before I went to nitro dispensing and had to bring the stout up to around 2.2 volumes it literally took twice as long as the ~ 2.5 weeks my pales take to get to 2.5 volumes. With the nitro I only carb the stout to ~ 1.2 volumes so that's a big win wrt time.

So, yeah, I'd say there's a positive relationship between final gravity and time to carbonate...

Cheers!

[edit/ps] wrt "set and forget", don't "forget" there's an important temperature factor. Ie: if your stout was sitting at room temperature 8 psi is only going to get the beer to a little over one volume of CO2...

https://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table/

 

[MyCarHasAbs]

Okay, I have the temp control unit set to about 38F. I generally set and forget at 12psi and draw back to 8 or 9 once it’s carbed. For this one.. because I’ve been waiting for ****in’ ever for it to be ready and drinkable haha (it’s been aged with whiskey chips.. SOOO good!) I’m planning on leaving it at 15 and checking it again on Saturday. I know there’s gas in it as I can tell it’s trying to bubble up, just very little apparently from the low pressure I had it on for a couple weeks.