Question about shaking the keg to carbonate

[JD-]

Does shaking the keg while force carbonating use up the foaming proteins?

If it does, what's the best way to force carbonate without shaking?

[Ozwald]

Does shaking the keg while force carbonating use up the foaming proteins?

If it does, what's the best way to force carbonate without shaking?

All shaking does is force the gas to dissolve in the liquid more quickly. I don't have a bright tank or a way to crash below 60*F when kegging so I hook up the CO2 at 20-25psi. When the gas flow audibly stops, disconnect, shake, hook it back up. The gas will start flowing again due to the dissolved gas. Lather, rinse, repeat 3 or 4 times & store until I'm ready to serve (chill to serving temp, release head pressure with check valve, hook up serving pressure & forget about it). If I could get them colder (colder liquids dissolve gas into themselves quicker and more efficiently), I'd do the same thing with a lower PSI. Use brewing software or a calculator to determine the appropriate pressure.

[Nyakavt]

+1 to the post above. The foaming proteins do get used up when they foam, but I think there are way more in the average beer than we need to create a good head, or maybe other factors that would need to be present to give a poor head formation and retention. Check out Kai's experiment on this, it demonstrates pretty convincingly that it isn't much of a concern. Anecdotally I haven't been able to tell the difference between shaken and non-shaken beers on my system.

If you don't want to shake, you can just hook up the gas and leave it alone for a week or two. As the post above said, colder is better.

[beltbuckle]

+1 to the post above. The foaming proteins do get used up when they foam, but I think there are way more in the average beer than we need to create a good head, or maybe other factors that would need to be present to give a poor head formation and retention. Check out Kai's experiment on this, it demonstrates pretty convincingly that it isn't much of a concern. Anecdotally I haven't been able to tell the difference between shaken and non-shaken beers on my system.

If you don't want to shake, you can just hook up the gas and leave it alone for a week or two. As the post above said, colder is better.

Cool and quick exbeeriment, thanks for the link.

[mediumsk]

co2 dissolves top to bottom so even if your doing a longer steady carbonation, shaking will moved some of the carbonated beer to the bottom

[JD-]

Ok, this helps alot, So I basically shouldn't worry overmuch about over shaking.

It's also good to know that once it's carbonated, I don't have to keep it at a higher pressure, and can just leave it at the pouring pressure. I keep pressuring it up after every use. I'll stop doing that now...

Thanks all who replied.