Long-time bottler, first-time kegger

[BrotherBock]

Getting my first keg soon and am reading up on how to work the pressure.

First beer going in is a saison, currently sitting at 80 degrees
According to this: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/1312/Summerzym95-Kegging_How-To.pdf

I need to set my pressure at 40psi for the 2.8 vol equivalent. Obviously I won't serve it at 80 degrees, so am I right that when the temp of my beer drops to say, 44, that the pressure will also drop and bring me closer to the 17.8 shown in the table on pg.50?

 

[rrkss32]

That is correct, you set the pressure based on the temperature of your beer not the room. For most of my beers, I carbonate to 2.5 volumes and my kegerator is set at 38 degrees so I have my regulators set slightly under 12 psi.

 

[BrotherBock]

Cool. So then setting the initial pressure is different than setting the regulator?

I have a pretty standard regulator. Like this but different brand: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/dual-gauge-co2-regulator

 

[m00ps]

well if you mean you should drop the pressure to 17.8 to stay at that volume of CO2 that yes. But if you chill it to 44 and leave it at 40psi, you're going to have mostly foam instead of beer

 

[BrotherBock]

Gotcha. So then does it make more sense for ease of use to just fill the keg, seal with a little pressure, let it chill to desired temp and then set it to serving pressure?

 

[doug293cz]

Gotcha. So then does it make more sense for ease of use to just fill the keg, seal with a little pressure, let it chill to desired temp and then set it to serving pressure?

You can set to serving pressure while still warm, and then place in kegerator/keezer. Might as well make use of the time to chill to start carbonation. It will take two to three weeks to reach full carbonation. Carbonation happens faster early in the process than it does later, so beer might have "acceptable" carbonation after a week to 10 days. This is known as the "set and forget" method of force carbonation.

You can also do accelerated carbonation to get the beer drinkable sooner. One popular method is to set the pressure to 30 psi and place the keg in the cooler. Wait 36 hrs (any more and you risk over-carbonation), remove the gas in QD, vent the keg, set the regulator to serving pressure, and reconnect the gas QD. Beer should be drinkable 1 - 2 days later.

Some people also like to shake or roll the kegs to speed up CO2 absorption, but if you don't do it just right, you risk over-carbonation (which is a PITA to deal with.) Another downside is that you will stir up any sediment in the beer, and it will take some time for that to resettle. I personally don't recommend the shake-rattle-roll methods.

Brew on