Kegged 1st time. Set CO2 to 30 psi for 24hrs, turned down to 7 psi to serve. First pour into picher, foamy but calmed down had good carbonation and head retention gas left at 7psi. Second pour 1hr later carrbonation much flater low head retention. Has set co2 to 20psi and will check in 24 hours.
Question: how long does it take (and how do you know) for carbonation to take “hold” (I have heard 2 days to 2wks) and once it takes hold how long before it would need carbonation again. this is a 6.5 Abv beer sitting at 35-40 F and shooting for 3 vols.
I prefer to be as simple as possible when force carbing. I try to keep plenty of beers on tap at any one time so I am not overly anxious to pour a perfect beer in 24 hours. Simply, keep your cooler so it dispenses at 38 to 45 degrees, or what you like. Set keg pressure at 12 pounds or whatever your style wants. Start with about 10 feet of line, 3/16 ID. This will give you a nice slow, not overly foamy pour. If it is too slow for you, cut a foot off and try again. Most importantly, let the keg carb without fuss for a solid week and there you are. There are tons of other ways to carb. Shaking, kicking, rolling, bouncing. high pressure then low pressure then no pressure. Big headache unless you know where you are going and how to get there. Cheers!
I’ll typically keg the beer, charge with 20 psi and shake the keg for a couple of minutes. Then I set to serving pressure and leave for 2 weeks. I like a well carbonated beer. You’ll also want to consider how much headspace you have in the keg. If you ended up with 5.5 gallons in a 5-gallon corny keg, then you’ll have to leave it longer on the gas to get the desired result. Or you can pull off a pint or two every so often to reduce the headspace. Also, my beer lines are about 4-5 feet long. Ten feet seems a bit long IMO, but YMMV.
I don’t think you can get a keg carbonated in 24 hours using head pressure, no matter how high it is. You can get there by leaving the keg at serving pressure for 7-10 days, or by setting it at serving pressure and shaking as often as possible for 1-2 days. It’s just a question of how long you want to wait.
If you are in a rush then kick, shake, rattle and roll however I’m personally not a fan.
Set it to the correct pressure and let it sit 3-4 days. If I’m in a rush then I’ll set to 30psi for a day, then bring it to serving pressure and sample. Repeat as needed…
You shouldn’t lose carbonation in an hour. Unless, maybe, if the gas was leaking out.
I don’t pour pints too often, so I don’t keep the gas hooked to my kegs. I’ll pull a pint or two using head pressure. When the flow slows, I’ll charge it back up. I don’t think the carbonation changes fast enough that you would notice the difference in the glass.
But if the head space had lots of pressure and you pour a pint, you’ll get tons of carbonation coming out during the pour because of the fast pressure drop at the faucet. Later with normal pressure more CO2 will stay dissolved instead of forming bubbles.
I think you’re describing exactly what the OP had happen. If he charged it at 30 and didn’t bleed it before pouring he had too much pressure for the first pour. After the head pressure came down, the low carbonation of the beer became evident.
IME, two pints drawn an hour apart, properly carbonated, have no noticeable difference even using only head pressure to pour. Head pressure should not be 30 psi. You would probably notice a difference with two pitchers, but that would mostly be because you’d run out of pressure to pour unless you hooked the gas back up.
