Force Carbing Corny Keg

[Slickchilli]

Hi all, I've been around a while but just generally cruise through the new posts picking up some tips as I do!!! I now have a question I'm hoping someone may be able to help me with. I'm fairly new to corny kegs and force Carbing. I usually just hook up the freshly filled corny to serving pressure for about 10 days which doesn't seem to be enough. I want to start force Carbing using the "shake for 5 minutes" method and have come across one of those mini gas regulators on e-bay, the kind that takes a 16g bulb style cartridge. Would the 16g bulb be enough to force carb a 19 litre corny keg? Thanks in advance.

 

[Slickchilli]

Guess it might help if you knew what I was looking at!!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/273551126457[/QUOTE]

 

[Drunkula]

Carbing 19 litres of a beer that fermented at 20c to 2.3 volumes takes 54g of co2 then 86g to serve. If you used three whole cylinders that would get you to 2.14 vols and using four would get you to 2.78 vols which is a bit high.

 

[Slickchilli]

Carbing 19 litres of a beer that fermented at 20c to 2.3 volumes takes 54g of co2 then 86g to serve. If you used three whole cylinders that would get you to 2.14 vols and using four would get you to 2.78 vols which is a bit high.

Thanks for that. Maybe not such a good idea as I thought then!! Can I ask what method you use to force carb? I've tried the 30psi overnight option (too much) and the 10 day serving pressure option (too little), just can't seem to get it right!!

 

[Drunkula]

Can I ask what method you use to force carb?

Set it to 30 or 40 psi and shake the **** out of it. It's already cold so takes the co2 easily. Then I'll drink far too much of it and then set the pressure for where it should be for the carb level I want.

 

[Slickchilli]

Sounds like I've not been giving it anywhere near enough with the serving pressure option then. I'll give your method a go with the latest batch. With my set up, I can't leave the gas attached when I shake it about (hence the independent option I was thinking of above). Can I disconnect the gas again before shaking / rolling??

 

[Brew_DD2]

If 30psi overnight is too much for you, then why not try 25psi overnight then back down to serving pressure?

 

[Slickchilli]

If 30psi overnight is too much for you, then why not try 25psi overnight then back down to serving pressure?

Thanks for that and worth a try although last time at 30psi was a nightmare to serve even after purging the pressure and recharging it with serving pressure only. Thanks both.

 

[Brew_DD2]

12 hours at 30psi shouldn't produce something overly carbed. You balanced your system?

What sort of line lengths and diameters are you using for serving?

 

[Slickchilli]

I'm pretty new to this keg lark, can you explain about balancing? I'm running the off the shelf Grainfather kegerator which has the standard 3/8 gas line and what seem like yards of beer line from each of the 3 kegs to the tower.

 

[Brew_DD2]

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/07/14/keg-line-length-balancing-the-science-of-draft-beer/
If your beer line is also 3/8 then it's likely too short if you are getting lots and lots of foam when carbing to the required level. You can either lengthen your line to increase the resistance, or get line reducers and use 3/16 line, of which you'll need far less length.

 

[Slickchilli]

That's a great article. I'll check the length of my lines later. Thanks all for your suggestions.