Carbing beer in kegs

[Peter Smith]

I have tried set at 12.5 and leave 10 days and set at 30 and leave 3-4 days,  I am not achieving bottle carb levels at all, ideas?  Perhaps my gauges are out?   The beer is carbed but just not as much as I wish for...

[vdog]

My process is to chill down as far as I can (generally 5-6C), rack to kegs, connect to gas at 40psi and purge the headspace to get rid of any oxygen, then leave it alone for 24hrs. Come back the following day, drop to serving pressure and purge excess pressure off the keg, and start drinking it. I don't do the rocking/shaking thing, anytime I've done that it's gone badly so I just do what I know works for my system.

 

Some beers won't be quite at the carb level you want after 24hrs, but they'll have bubbles and be nice to drink - leaving it at serving pressure then takes care of the difference over another day or so but means you don't have to wait 5-7 days to start drinking it in the first place. 

[Matt Smith]

Do you guys that force carb by rocking the keg experience any loss in foam or head retention in your beers? I'm curious about the "only foam once principle".

I've only force carbed about 3 times. The first time I nailed it, the next two times I over did it, now I'm a little nervous to try again, mostly because I'm conscious of losing hop aromatics whilst venting excess pressure.

My standard procedure is to crash chill my fermenter to -1 and hold for 3 days, then rack to a keg, add gelatin whilst filling, pop in the kegerater at 4 degrees, set to serving pressure (about 12 psi), then wait atleast 5 days. After 5 days I have well conditioned, bright, and fully carbonated beer. Waiting for it to carb up at serving pressure forces you to let it condition properly before you tuck into it. With a healthy ferment, diacetyl rest and the 3 + 5 days cold conditioning time, I'm generally drinking just shy of 3 weeks from brewday, so its not a bad turnaround.

[Richard Jack]

Nope, no problems here. Because I rock it at serving pressure there is no chance of overshooting and having to play the venting game. But it takes a few minutes longer.

[jt]

Same here, most consistent way to carbonate, and not over gas

[Peter Smith]

I have a wheat beer that finally after 2 weeks in kegs is great,  it needed full carb to taste bitter enough...     

[Druid]

No, no issues with head retention etc - I'm a firm believer that CO2 is CO2 regardless of how it gets in - it takes a while to dissipate itself evenly through a beer and achieve a 'fine' carbonation - but otherwise there's no real difference between force carbing and not.

As long as you've got a method of working out how much you've carbed it, how you get it in and how fast you do it will be immaterial after a few days.

[Peter Smith]

another question - How often do you do a full strip down clean of your kegs vs a starsan flush???

[Smiffy]

I'm using "real" kegs, with just a 50mm opening so no option for manual scrubbing. After use I rinse a couple of times, then I shine a torch in, and if I can see any sign of any "dirt", or if it seems like a while since it has been done, I clean with a mild solution of caustic soda (25g/l), then rinse then sterilize. On average I probably do that once every 3 fills.

When I first got the kegs and they had mould growing in them, I used a stronger solution (100g/l) and that got them spotless. It's great for cleaning oven shelves too.

Smiffy

[Richard Jack]

I flush through hot PBW, then hot rinse, then starsan. Maybe every 3 or 4 fills I'll break them down?

[Druid]

Every time.

In practice it's not really that much extra.  I just remove the keg lid and the relief valve, keg in and out posts and tubes and soak them in napisan at the same time that I'm soaking the keg.  Then I repeat except using starsan and reassemble.  

I also find it's a good opportunity to force napisan and starsan through beer lines and taps while I've got each solution in a keg.

[Peter Smith]

whats the napisan/water ratio you use?

[Druid]

Maybe 1/2 a capful - a tbsp - to 5l of cold water? Time helps too if you've left the keg for so long that it's dried out to the point that the dregs are dried out and baked on....