carbonation help

[izumidai]

I'll make sure I listen to tonight's brew strong archive, but in case it is not covered, here is a topic I need help with...

I am currently in the process of finishing my kegerator, but I do have one keg hooked up and have been drinking it for about a month. It is a belgian golden strong and it is carbed to almost 4 volumes as Jamil recommends. I brewed a porter last week and planned on kegging that this weekend. I have a 4 way manifold for my gas, but only one regulator. The porter is not going to be carbed anywhere near 4 vols, so how can I carb this beer to normal porter levels and keep drinking the Belgian Golden Strong? I don't have a problem waiting to drink the porter until the BGS is gone, but I still want to get it in the keg and carbed. Am I going to need to unhook my Belgian and force carb the porter by shaking and then just let it sit in the kegerator? Would it be fine to then just leave the porter keg carbed with no gas hooked up?

Thanks,
Kevin

[ziggy]

Ok you should be at about 29-30 psi for the belgian golden strong so just hook up your porter at that pressure and leave it for 48 hours, no shaking necessary. Then unhook the porter and bleed off some of the pressure. Now you can drink the porter and the belgian. When the pressure on the porter gets low, hook up the gas for a few seconds. If it is too carbed, bleed some pressure off. If undercarbed hook it up again.

[Crackin]

You need to get another regulator, if you plan on doing this. Otherwise, just drink everything at 2.5 volumes and be done with it.

Doug

[Mylo]

Without a second regulator, you can keep both hooked up to the gas - but you will loose some CO2. I strongly recommend gas valves that have check valves in them for this procedure. When you want to drink the Golden Strong, then turn off the gas to the Porter, and raise the PSI. When you want to drink the Porter, shut off the Golden Strong (you wouldn't have to with a check valve - but it is probably good practice anyway), lower the pressure at the regulator and bleed off the excess pressure with the PRV valve in the Porter. If you want to drink both that night - you can probably dispense both at the lower pressure (depending on whether or not your GS beer line is extra long or not) - you just have to remember to stabilize the beer at the end of the night at the pressure it's supposed to be at.


Mylo