Individual CO2 regulators?

[petrolSpice]

I'm buying a house and can finally build a keezer and start kegging my beers instead of bottling. Is there an advantage to being able to regulate the CO2 pressure individually for each keg in the keezer? I suppose some styles benefit from more or less carbonation, but is this capability a bit overkill for simple homebrewing setup?

I mostly brew blondes, pale ales, brown ales, IPA's, IIPA's, and wheats. I almost never do porters, stouts, or lagers.

 

[Sailingeric]

I have a four reg set up for my kegs. I can adjust each as needed or turn one up for blast carbing or shut it off if there is no keg to put on the tap- do to poor beer planning.

 

[oylerck]

I've read you can't carbonate and pour at the same time. I'm sure you could force carb the keg and take it off the gas while that sits, but I've never tried either.

Another option is prime your keg with sugar and swap lines back and forth. This is what I'm planning on doing if I can ever get two beers on hand at the same time. That is until I have the funds for another regulator.

If you would like to serve beer and soda you will need a dual regulator because the serving pressure for soda is much higher than beer.

I don't know what the $ difference between a manifold or a dual regulator is, but I don't think it's a ton.

 

[mongoose33]

Originally I had a 4-valve manifold in my keezer to feed four kegs. I actually could do more than that if I put a WYE on any of the valves.

Those kegs could be any pressure you wanted as long as they were all the same. To force carb I had to turn off all but the one I wanted at the manifold, then bump up the pressure on the one gauge that ran it all.

Ran into a sale at the new years and had Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought a 4-gauge secondary regulator rig. It has a single barb at the end that I capped w/ a CO2 line and QD which means this: I can run 4 kegs at different pressures if I want, and I can force carb a fifth off the line from the end. All I need to do is feed 36 PSI (my preferred force-carbing pressure) to the gang of secondary regulators, and it all works.

My only concern at this point is I have a 5th faucet to install, and I'll have to run a WYE on one of the secondaries to feed two kegs. But that's small potatoes.

Would I do it again? You bet!

 

[petrolSpice]

Ah I didn't know that carbonating and pouring pressures were different. I suppose it wouldn't be that much trouble to shut off the valves to the pouring keg(s) and crank up the master regulator for carbing another keg. If I drink enough from the pouring keg(s) I could do the opposite real quick to pump the kegs back up.

 

[day_trippr]

Ah I didn't know that carbonating and pouring pressures were different. [...]

They don't have to be. I always carbonate and dispense at the same pressure.
But, I have patience...and a separate cold-carbonation/conditioning fridge...and a deep pipeline...

Cheers!