Afternoon,
I have a homebrew competition coming up soon and I need to force carb several beers and I am looking to do so in the quickest way possible. I have 9 days to do all this so I am looking for the fastest way to carb my beers. I have a belgian pale ale, a belgain strong dark ale, a blonde, and a stout.
I have a three tap keezer and a three tap trash can kegerator. The keezer can be kept cold but the trash can cannot. I also have two 5lb Co2 tanks.
I never recommend connecting gas to the beer side. It’s an easy way to muck up your gas line. Most reliable method is to get the beer cold, set at your desired pressure, purge 10-20 times, shake until the gas no longer goes in. let set a while, do it again. Let set overnight and test.
When you say “desired pressure”, how do I figure out what pressure I want? I have never been 100% clear on what PSI I need to set my tank to for carbing a beer.
Just so I understand your steps I am getting the correct PSI, filling the keg with Co2 until I cannot hear anything, purge it with the release valve letting gas escape for a couple seconds (Repeat 10-20 times), then shake the keg until I don’t hear gas going in. (Sorry for basically repeating everything but I want to make sure I understand exactly what I need to do)
Yeah, I don’t think it would make much difference to hook up the gas to the liquid fitting. I set my regulator at 20 - 25 psi, get the beer to temperatures in the 50’s, pick the keg up by the top and bottom ends and sway it back and forth until I can’t hear the gas bubbling in, about 80 shakes. Let it rest in the fridge for a day, vent off the excess pressure and serve. Sometimes it’s a little overcarbonated, but after a few draughts it seems to be just about right. Even better to use the chart that was linked above to get more accurate carb levels.
I attempted to carbonate 3 kegs of beer using the technique from jeffy. I had the kegs chilled to 43-45F, they had been chilling for a while, then I connect them to CO2 set at 16 PSI. I then sat down and put the kegs on my thighs and began rocking them similar to how jeffy described. The first keg made bubble sounds for a long time. I think I rocked it about 150 times. The other two kegs never really made any bubbling sounds I could hear. I still rocked each about 100 times per. I will give them a shot in 24 hours and see how they are doing.
One issue came up. With the first keg I think I tilted it to far to the valve side and some beer got in my C02 hose. Not a lot but enough I could see little droplets in the hose. What is the best way to clean that and how important is it to get it cleaned?
Thanks again for the help, praying to the beer gods that this works.
The only way you get beer into the gas line is if the keg had more pressure than the regulator. That may explain why you didn’t hear any gas going into the keg. Try bleeding off the pressure in the keg, setting it to serving pressure with CO2 and serving a glass to check for carbonation.
I had this happen to me once, through my own inattention (about a 6 on the Bonehead Scale). At first I thought “Hey, no problem, it’s in a nearly pure CO2 environment; nothing’s gonna growth there. What could go wrong?” But I decided not to tempt the Fates, so I replaced the gas line and cleaned the connector. Any easy and cheap fix, and guaranteed 100% reliable.
I will try it tonight to see how carbonated it is or is not. Not sure how the pressure in the keg would be more than the regulator. Could it be that my tank was running low on CO2?
Spent last night testing the beers I carbonated with the method from here and it worked like a charm. Beers had good carbonation in the keg and during bottling. I got one batch bottled and the others are ready for my Halloween party.
I will use this method for the contest beers I need to be ready by next Friday. Thanks again for the help everyone!
I didn’t see it discussed above, so I’ll drop a tidbit: Generally with no rocking I’ve had good luck getting a keg carbonated in 2, usually 3 days when set at about 25-30 psi.
I used the steps that jeffy explain again for a new beer. On Sunday I set the PSI to around 16, rocked the keg until I couldn’t hear anymore bubble…which took a lot longer this time, and then left it for a day. This morning I ran it through my kegerator and it is still totally flat. I tested the keg and there doesn’t appear to be any leaks. I refilled and re-rocked the keg so hopefully it will work but now I am terrified I will be out of time to carbonate the beer.
If it’s literally flat then even a leak wouldn’t explain it; that would mean no gas was getting in at all. Is it just UNDER-carbonated?
I don’t know that I’d rely on any listening for bubbles to know when to stop. Bubbling would mean that the gas stem was submerged, which I try to avoid. Plus the great thing about carbonating at serving pressure is you can’t over-do it. Shake 'til you’re scared.