Corny keg carbonation

[The Village Idiot]

Cold beer 30psi for 24hrs, occasionally a bit longer...... bleed off excess pressure and serve...simple

 

[mckenry]

Man..... I am drinking one I kegged 2 hours ago. Its bloody easy.
Now, I do have a seconf gas bottle and reg.
This is how to do it;
1. Cold conditioned beer is filtered and kegged, under pressure from fermenter - you may not be able to do this, but really shouldnt matter as long as the beer is cold. Just get your beer kegged.
2. Purge the headspace with CO2
3. Change the gas disconnect to a beer disconnect.
4. Up the pressure to 150kpa and bang it in down the beer out tube, for about 5-10 seconds.
5. Turn the bottle off when gas wont go in anymore, which is 5-10 seconds. Rock the keg until the gas stops going into solution and the pressure will have dropped on the reg gauge.
6. Repeat until after you turn the gas bottle off the bubbles wont go into solution when rocking the keg. Should only be 3 or 4 repeats.
Beer is carbed. Put it in serving fridge at pouring pressure and start to consume.

It is damn good now and will improve the mouthfeel after sitting for a few days.
So easy to drink decent beer THE DAY you keg it.

All the above work, but I dont like waiting that long to drink my beer.

 

[schoey]

I cold crash all my fermented beer for a least a couple of days (preferably a week plus), keg, then force carb using the Ross method. I then let the kegs sit for at least a week or two. The large bubbles the quick force carb methods are notorious for are probably due to large particles (yeast, proteins etc that haven't had time to completely settle) in the beer providing nucleation points for CO2 to form. I find that after a couple of weeks that the bubbles are as small as if I had slow carbed over 2 weeks.

 

[AlwayzLoozeCount]

I have a kegerator that fits three kegs but I was thinking about getting a few more kegs that I would keep full and carbonate naturally and age some bigger bigger beers in.

My theory is when a keg runs out I simply grab a filled warm naturally carbonated keg put it in the kegerator and connect the lines, wait 24 hours for it to chill and then drink.

Will this method work?

 

[tugger]

I use a keg king carbonator cap.
It's a replacement keg cap with a gas post in the lid.
It has a tube running from under the lid with a ss stone at the end.
Set it to 2 bar for 30 mins and your done.
If you need more bubbles just hook up the stone again and it carbs without stirring the yeast at the bottom.

 

[tugger]

 

[Tropico]

For me, there are 2 things that are certainties:

1. everybody does it differently
2. those last few glasses are always the best

 

[GalBrew]

I usually carb mine at whatever pressure necessary to achieve a certain level of carb (using a carbonation calculator) and hold it there indefinitely. Generally in the vicinity of 12-14 PSI for 1 week will be carbed adequately, 2 weeks and it will be carbed perfectly and will have cleared up nicely too. Doing it this way allows you to dial in whatever level of carbonation you desire.

 

[slcmorro]

I have a kegerator that fits three kegs but I was thinking about getting a few more kegs that I would keep full and carbonate naturally and age some bigger bigger beers in.

My theory is when a keg runs out I simply grab a filled warm naturally carbonated keg put it in the kegerator and connect the lines, wait 24 hours for it to chill and then drink.

Will this method work?

Yes.

 

[nosco]

I cold crash all my fermented beer for a least a couple of days (preferably a week plus), keg, then force carb using the Ross method. I then let the kegs sit for at least a week or two. The large bubbles the quick force carb methods are notorious for are probably due to large particles (yeast, proteins etc that haven't had time to completely settle) in the beer providing nucleation points for CO2 to form. I find that after a couple of weeks that the bubbles are as small as if I had slow carbed over 2 weeks.

Forgive my ignorance but whats the point of force carbing your beer if you are then going to let it sit a week or 2? Why not just let it slow carb as you also mentioned.

 

[Hpal]

I'm new to kegs and I just can't get it right. I have a home made keezer, 4 tap font, perlick 650ss, aprox 1-1.2m 5mm beer line. I force carbed by first beer and it was perfect, second beer over carbed. Luckily the flow control allowed me to pour but still wasn't quite right as you can imagine.

3rd beer I tried the set and forget method and after 3 weeks it just doesn't feel carbonated enough. I started on about 10-12 PSI for two weeks and bumped it up to 14 for the last week. Temperatures stay between 3-5 degrees Celsius.

Just tastes like English bitter/ stout kind of carbonation levels. Im reasonably sure I don't have a leak. Am I doing something wrong?

Hey mate.
This is what works for me. I have a similar chest freezer setup but no flow control taps. I think you could have a balancing issue, I use 3m of 5mm beer line, not the clear looking pvc tube but the opaque tube which is stiffer (and different flow resistance), I think I could get away with 2.5m of tubing though. I set reg to maybe 12, sometimes 14 and it pours well. There are articles around about keg line balancing because a lot comes into it, line length, line type, keg height from taps, beer temp, type of taps etc etc. I'm no expert but this seems to work for me, Cheers

 

[schoey]

Forgive my ignorance but whats the point of force carbing your beer if you are then going to let it sit a week or 2? Why not just let it slow carb as you also mentioned.

For a couple of reasons. 1 I can start consuming the beer straight away if I want to and 2 I don't connect my gas permanently to my kegs as I don't have a gas manifold and have 6 kegs in my keezer and 2 more in the fermentation fridge.

 

[nosco]

Good points. I hadn't thought of that.