I force carb my beer using a variety of pressures depending on style, timeline, etc. When I’m quick carbing with 30-40PSI I will typically let it sit for ~12-24 hours then bleed/purge the CO2 and reset to serving pressure to finish off. My question is whether the bleed/purge is really necessary or if the pressure will eventually just dissolve into the beer and balance out to serving pressure. The reason I care about this is that I feel like I lose a ton of hop aromatics when I purge, and for some styles (e.g. NE IPA) that is most unfortunate.
Has anyone force carbed under high pressure and then just reset to serving without bleeding off the high pressure in the keg?
Thanks. That’s my go to article for burst carbing. So are there many of you who don’t bother to purge when turning down the pressure? Seems like every post I see in this forum mentions it.
I’ll set to 30 psi for roughly 24 hours which usually is not quite enough to carb fully. It’s close but not there yet. I then turn down the pressure.
Problem is, without bleeding I can’t determine exactly where I set the new pressure level until it gets low enough from serving or absorption to activate the regulator again.
The servings from the reduced pressure still come out under the high pressure initially so it is hard to tell how carbonated the beer actually is at that point.
This is why I’m happy I adjusted my timeline so I can just carb over a week or more at serving temperature and pressure. Removes all the guesswork and overcarbonated or undercarbonated pours. Burst carbonation will never get the beer to equilibrium, and it’s easy to overshoot, so there’s an adjustment period. But if you have to burst carbonate and serve before the beer takes up the excess gas in the headspace, I see no reason to purge. You’ll accomplish the same thing when you pour that first super foamy pint.