Thirsty Boy
ICB - tight shorts and poor attitude. **** yeah!
- Joined
- 21/5/06
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Oh, you can force carbonate without a reg - I did it for about 6months before I got a full keg set-up. My method depends on having a car tyre valve as your gas in... so if you don't have that please ignore the following.
Force carbonate with accuracy if you don't have a regulated set-up
Warning: - Unregulated gas is nasty, you could blow yourself up (don't ask how I know....) so you NEED to make sure the relief valve is working well and you NEED to be a little bit careful when you are charging C02 into the keg. If you take an eye out or a hand off, don't blame me, you were warned.
Note:- Leave a little head space in your party keg, it will make the pressure more manageable. Best to fill it only up the the 5L mark, you can get away with a little more, just not all the way to the top OK.
Purchase from autobarn/supercheap/Kmart etc etc. A bog standard tyre pressure gauge. One of the pop up ones is fine, I got a dial one from a Vietnamese $2 shop for about 5 bucks.
Alright, lets go.
Store the beer at that pressure till you want to drink it. When you are serving, don't worry about the actual pressure of the keg, just release or shoot in gas till it pours well through your tap and line set-up. If you don't get through all the beer and you want to make sure the carbonation level is OK for next time you drink it, just a couple rounds of - measure/pressurise/shake/measure - will get it back to where it started and you will be right to go next time.
Cheers
Thirsty
Force carbonate with accuracy if you don't have a regulated set-up
Warning: - Unregulated gas is nasty, you could blow yourself up (don't ask how I know....) so you NEED to make sure the relief valve is working well and you NEED to be a little bit careful when you are charging C02 into the keg. If you take an eye out or a hand off, don't blame me, you were warned.
Note:- Leave a little head space in your party keg, it will make the pressure more manageable. Best to fill it only up the the 5L mark, you can get away with a little more, just not all the way to the top OK.
Purchase from autobarn/supercheap/Kmart etc etc. A bog standard tyre pressure gauge. One of the pop up ones is fine, I got a dial one from a Vietnamese $2 shop for about 5 bucks.
Alright, lets go.
- Decide how much carbonation you want in your beer. Lets call this one 2.5 volumes just to keep it standard.
- How cold is your beer?? Measure the temperature. Our example will be at 4C
- Consult a chart or look in pro-mash/beer smith to find out how much pressure you need to carbonate to that volume. our example needs 12psi
- Attach your gas and pressurize the keg carefully until the pressure relief valve starts to bleed. Now disconnect the gas, pick up the keg and shake it for a minute. Repeat 3 times.
- After the third time, let it settle for a minute or two, then use the tyre pressure gauge to read the internal pressure of the keg, its probably still a fair bit less than your desired pressure, but we need to go a little more carefully from now on to avoid over shooting.
- Pressurize your keg again, but this time only to 5psi more than your target pressure, disconnect gas and shake. Repeat this, you will need to put in less and less gas each time, until the pressure stops dropping completely and is stable at a few PSI above your target pressure.
Store the beer at that pressure till you want to drink it. When you are serving, don't worry about the actual pressure of the keg, just release or shoot in gas till it pours well through your tap and line set-up. If you don't get through all the beer and you want to make sure the carbonation level is OK for next time you drink it, just a couple rounds of - measure/pressurise/shake/measure - will get it back to where it started and you will be right to go next time.
Cheers
Thirsty