Carbonation for beginners

Hi all,

I’ve recently started kegging my homebrew but have had some issues with getting a consistent, and decent amount of carbonation in the kegs by force carbonating. Could anyone shine some light on my specific problems?

My fridge temp is 39-40 degrees, and I’ve been targeting a level of about 2.5-2.6 volumes of CO2. Therefore, I’ve been setting my pressure per any one of the charts you can find online. After a lack of success initially, I even found a page that explained how to “balance” the keg lines, so with my set pressure I trimmed down my beer lines from 5’ to 3.6’ per the formula. Sound ok?

Lastly, if I use the “slow” method of carbonation, after the desired level of carbonation has been reach do I need to turn down my pressure from say 10, to 4 to serve?

Thanks!

What you are saying sounds right but lengthening your lines would work better so the pressure for your desired carbonation level is that same as your service pressure, say 10 psi.  The formula for line length is very approximate so it is better to get too much line which causes the flow to be very slow and then shorten the line until a proper pour is achieved.  My lines are about 10 feet long using the “standard” plastic tubing of “standard” homebrewing diameter.  (Standard really means typical and also means I don’t remember what it is).

If by the “slow” method you mean setting the regulator to serving pressure, purging the keg (hopefully), and then walking away, bear in mind that it will take something like two weeks to get it fully carbonated. Are you waiting long enough? You can accelerate things quite a bit (I usually tap kegs on the third day) by keeping it at serving pressure, but shaking as much as possible for the first few hours, assuming the keg’s cold.

Every LHBS reference or online draft system calculator will give a line length that’s too short for good pours, IME. 5 feet of 3/16" ID x 7/16" OD beverage tubing would be about the minimum at 10 psi, and you need about an 1.5 ft of line for every 1 psi over that. So keep that in mind in case you get foaming issues with your short lines.

For those numbers (39°F, 2.5 vol) you’d need to set the regulator to 12 psig, and ideally have 8-10 ft lines.

This may be over simplifying things a bit, but I have had great results by letting my BeerSmith software calculate the carbonating pressure for me.  You enter the the desired carbonation level and temperature of the beer/keg.  The software tells you where to set your regulator.  This won’t be maintenance free, I found that giving a shake pretty often the first few hours gets it started, then I check it once a day.  Sometimes I find that the pressure has diminished a little, but I believe that’s due to a very inexpensive regulator (there is no leak).  I adjust the pressure up to where it should be, and give it a shake at least once a day.  As long as the pressure has stayed consistent for at least 24 hours and I can’t hear the “bubbling” when I shake the Keg I know it’s done.  I purge the excess pressure in the keg before tapping it to serve, and let it sit for a few hours to settle down after shaking.  No one wants a glass full of foam.  Hope this helps a little.