Beer Forum

Tasty,

Do you carb your kegs over several days, or have a quicker way? I'm guessing you don't use the "shake method"...

Roguejim wrote:Tasty,

Do you carb your kegs over several days, or have a quicker way? I'm guessing you don't use the "shake method"...

I won't endeavor to speak for Tasty, but I recall in the CYBI episode on Black Butte Porter, they were drinking a beer that was eight days old. If there's a magic trick for cold crashing and carbing a beer in three days, I would love to know it.

I'll offer what works for me. I've been crashing in a carboy for 24-48 hrs and then push the beer with CO2 to a sealed, sanitized and purged keg. Since the beer is already cold, I just hook the gas to the beer out connector and turn to 25psi. I rock the corny and stop when I hear the gas bubbling inside as it diffuses into the beer. When the bubbling stops, I rock it again and repeat this about 20 times. I then hook the keg up for normal dispensing and set gas to 15 psi. In a couple days I turn it down to about 6psi and start sampling my fully carbed beer. Works great and of course I learned it from the BNA.

I use a variety of ways to carbonate beer. It depends on how much time I have before I need the beer. I just put a 1.043 Blonde Ale into my fermentor that I'll be serving a week from today (July 4 party). I'll rack it out of the 70F fermentor on day 5, cold crash it for 24 hours, then filter and carbonate it on day 6 using the shake method. Most beers I make two weeks before they're needed so I usually have three days instead of two to get the beer ready. On those, I filter after 24 hours, and then set the regulator to 50 psi for 24 hours. Then I "taste" the carbonation level and set the regulator anywhere from 12 to 20 psi for 24 hours depending on how far I'm off from my target. Beers I don't need for a week I just set the regulator to the target psi and wait a week.

All the methods except the one-week method require experience but I've found that if you pay attention and remember to change the psi when you're supposed to, it's pretty reliable. Almost all the CYBI beers I do are 13-14 days since flameout when we taste them.

Tasty

TastyMcD wrote:I use a variety of ways to carbonate beer. It depends on how much time I have before I need the beer. I just put a 1.043 Blonde Ale into my fermentor that I'll be serving a week from today (July 4 party). I'll rack it out of the 70F fermentor on day 5, cold crash it for 24 hours, then filter and carbonate it on day 6 using the shake method. Most beers I make two weeks before they're needed so I usually have three days instead of two to get the beer ready. On those, I filter after 24 hours, and then set the regulator to 50 psi for 24 hours. Then I "taste" the carbonation level and set the regulator anywhere from 12 to 20 psi for 24 hours depending on how far I'm off from my target. Beers I don't need for a week I just set the regulator to the target psi and wait a week.

All the methods except the one-week method require experience but I've found that if you pay attention and remember to change the psi when you're supposed to, it's pretty reliable. Almost all the CYBI beers I do are 13-14 days since flameout when we taste them.

Tasty

Thanks. 50psi is the highest I've heard anyone going. Sounds good.

Just a thought/question. Would setting the pressure on a keg and laying it on its side allow for faster carbonation? There would be a greater surface area, seems like it would have an effect. The CO2 would only have to go into solution and diffuse down the diameter of the keg rather than the height...

spiderwrangler wrote:Just a thought/question. Would setting the pressure on a keg and laying it on its side allow for faster carbonation? There would be a greater surface area, seems like it would have an effect. The CO2 would only have to go into solution and diffuse down the diameter of the keg rather than the height...

I think I remember Bug saying he did it that way and just rolled it with his bare feet while watching tv.

scotchpine wrote:

spiderwrangler wrote:Just a thought/question. Would setting the pressure on a keg and laying it on its side allow for faster carbonation? There would be a greater surface area, seems like it would have an effect. The CO2 would only have to go into solution and diffuse down the diameter of the keg rather than the height...

I think I remember Bug saying he did it that way and just rolled it with his bare feet while watching tv.

I was eating lunch until Bub's bare feet entered the conversation...