Carbonating my Muntons Irish Stout
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wilconrad
Well-Known Member
When I force carb, I chill the keg down to 35 or so, set the gas to 25psi, turn the keg horizontal and rock it back & forth. You'll hear the gas flowing in as the beer saturates with C02. Once you don't hear any more gas flowing, turn the gas down to serving pressure and let the keg sit for several hours, then you're ready to serve.
This is one of my favorite things about kegging, carbing takes a few hours, not a few weeks!
This is one of my favorite things about kegging, carbing takes a few hours, not a few weeks!
wilconrad
Well-Known Member
You can just leave it on the gas and it will eventually carb after a few days to a week. I'm not aware of a way to tell if it's fully carbed without just shaking and seeing if more gas flows in.
Out of curiosity, why would you not just shake it and carb it up? To my knowledge, there is no downside to doing this and you have fully carbed beer more quickly. If you don't want to serve it until later, that's no biggie, it'll be ready whenever you are.
Out of curiosity, why would you not just shake it and carb it up? To my knowledge, there is no downside to doing this and you have fully carbed beer more quickly. If you don't want to serve it until later, that's no biggie, it'll be ready whenever you are.
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
Pour a sample and taste it. Usually takes 10 days to 2 weeks using the set and forget method to reach full carbonation. It should be carbonated enough that it's pleasant to drink much sooner though.
If you chill beer to 35°, set the pressure to 25psi, and shake until gas stops flowing in, you'll have beer carbonated to 4.01 vol. Advice like this is what leads to the plethora of "Help! My beer is all foam" threads on this forum. If you really insist on shaking your beer to carbonate it, doing it at serving pressure is the only way to ensure that you don't overcarbonate. I don't doubt that the system you're using works, for you, but you're obviously not actually shaking until gas stops flowing completely. Not everyone is shooting for the same carb level, and every regulator is different. I have one regulator where gas flowing is only audible when a very large amount of gas is flowing through. I have another one where any gas flowing through is audible. Someone else trying to replicate what you do based on these instructions will more than likely end up overcarbing their beer.
Shaking disturbs any yeast that settled while it was chilled to serving temp, making the beer less clear for at least the first couple days, and sometimes much longer. It also forms more carbonic acid, which most people don't find pleasant. The excess carbonic acid usually ages out, but that kinda defeats the purpose of speeding up the process. The last reason many of us choose to use the set and forget method, is that most beers benefit from the cold conditioning. I also have enough in the pipeline that I'm usually not in a hurry.
The rare times I'm in a rush to carb a beer, I use my carb stone. Before I had a carb stone, I'd chill the beer and set the pressure to 30psi for ~36 hrs (no shaking) and then vent and reduce to serving pressure. Both of these methods carry far fewer risks than the method you described.
wilconrad
Well-Known Member
Guy above is technically correct on the 4 volumes calc, if you really stick with it until literally no more gas flows than you'd have overcarbed the beer. I haven't had this issue, however, as in practice I find that it just helps the beer carb up quicker. You reduce to serving pressure when you're done shaking and the system reaches equilibrium at the correct carb level within a day. To each his own, though, I can't argue with the fundamentals he's laid out.
On the downsides to shaking, there typically isn't much sediment to worry about in my experience thus far, and it'll settle back out anyway, but I acknowledge the point. I had no idea about the carbonic acid issue, that's interesting, learned something new there.
On the downsides to shaking, there typically isn't much sediment to worry about in my experience thus far, and it'll settle back out anyway, but I acknowledge the point. I had no idea about the carbonic acid issue, that's interesting, learned something new there.
