If you go by the chart: Let’s say I have an American Wheat that I am going to keep at 34ºF and I want it carbonated somewhere around 2.8 Volumes. Okay, that means I’m needing 12psi @34ºF and I’ll be very close to my target of 2.8v.
AND I have a SECOND keg in the fridge, same temp, different beer, and target is 2.4v, I’m needing to be at 8psi for desired carbonation.
What is the best/simplest/most effective way of NOT having 2 CO2 bottles in the fridge?
If you’re having guests and you want to serve both beers, it’s my take that these want to be dispensed at 10psi. When the session is over, do I have to go back to the fridge and knock the 2.4v back DOWN to 8 and kick the 2.8v back UP to 12psi for “storage”?
This is probably SO easy and simple, but a little hand holding and geezer-splaining would be most welcome.
I have a three-faucet keezer system. Two of the faucets default as “normal” (~2.4 vol CO2), and I have a second “high carb” faucet (~3.0 vol CO2). I have a dual pressure regulator (similar to this link), so that I can set a high carb for one and a lower pressure for the others (which feeds into a mainfold to three gas lines). My line lengths between keg and faucet are customized for high vs. low pressure.
Because I have three faucets but four gas lines (three from the low pressure, one from the high pressure), I can use the high pressure faucet as a low pressure faucet - it just pours a bit more slowly when under lower pressure. One gas line is unused at a time, depending on whether the extra low or the high pressure ones are in use.
I have also adjusted the lengths of my beverage lines so that I don’t have to adjust to a serving pressure for the kegs - this may or may not be worthwhile for your setup, because it does mean a LOOOONG line if you are using picnic taps.
So the TLDR; I have a dual pressure regulator so that I can have two pressures from one CO2 bottle.
Another vote for a dual pressure regulator. And, you can usually convert a single pressure regulator just by adding an additional regulator body and reusing the original.
Third vote - I wound up installing a large pressure manifold in my keezer for different styles… It also allows me to manage serving pressures once the keg is fully carbonated, especially for british styles vs lagers.
I also vote for a dual pressure regulator. Although my keezer does not have one, I carbonate in a separate lagering freezer to the desired volumes of CO2 and then transfer to the serving keezer where I serve at about 10 PSI. I know that the carbonation does start to come out to reach equilibrium with the serving pressure in higher carbonated beers using this method, but I can easily jack up the pressure overnight or for a day to bring the level back to where it should be for those beers. Full disclosure, a lot of times I don’t mess with it because I have never had a beer like a Saison in a competition where a judge has said that the carbonation is too low. The amount of carbonation reduction does not occur very quickly and really does not get too noticeable until I am near the bottom of the keg.
The replies here are the right answer. If, like me, you don’t feel like purchasing regulator parts, you can do the poor man’s method that I do. Using a manifold with valves, I carb the higher volume beer first to its target and isolate the keg by closing the valve, then carb the lower beer at its target. Then I set my single regulator to serving pressure and open all of the valves. Yes, the system will subsequently balance the carbonation to the same level across kegs over time. But I figure I can repeat the carbonation step on the kegs as needed to keep them different. It is by no means a perfect solution, but it works for me.
Yeah a dual pressure regulator is going to be easiest. You can play around with lines to increase or decrease pressure (potentially at the expense of flow rate, if that matters) but you’re locked in to that setup until you change out lines. A dual pressure regulator will give you the flexibility to make those adjustments per keg.
