force carb keg
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 3:57 pm
by hhellraiser
yesterday i keged a imperial blond i made and tried my hand at force carbing it . now the chart i have says 25.3 psi for 2.5 volumes at 64 f . first question does that sound right or am i reading the chart wrong . after the force carb prosses i set the psi to 10 as i think this is the serving psi but beer was all head and came out really fast. so i decided to leave it go and put it in the fridge for the night at 10 psi. today when i tried it again it still comes out really fomey and fast . next i then took it off co2 and released the pressure via the valve and am going to let it sit overnight . any insight would be great ty
signed lost in the sauce
Re: force carb keg
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:38 pm
by krizwit
The CO2 needs to absorb into the beer. If you just set it at 10psi or so and the beer is already COLD, it will be mostly carbonated in 3 days. If you try to carbonate the beer while it is warm, the CO2 will not absorb into the beer at the same rate. If you force carbonate a beer, it is best done cold and then after you are done shaking the keg you need to pull on the release valve to get the extra CO2 out of the headspace and then set your regulator back down to 10-15psi.
Re: force carb keg
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:09 pm
by hhellraiser
ok ty
Re: force carb keg
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:16 pm
by Bugeater
After force carbing like this, stick the keg in the kegerator but don't hook up the CO2 until the beer has cooled down to serving temperature. Also don't release the pressure in the keg after disconnecting it from the 25 psi gas. This pressure in the head space will drop as the gas is dissolved into the beer as the temperature drops. If you release that pressure before cooling the beer will be way under carbonated.
The initial foaming issue just sounds like the beer wasn't cold yet and you had too much head pressure. This should have cured itself by sitting overnight. The second time, when cold, sounds like you also do not have a balanced system. At normal serving temperatures at that pressure you should be running somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 feet of 3/16" inside diameter beer line. If you are using less than that or using a larger diameter beer line you will get excessive foaming. Check your beer line.
Wayne