keg carbonation

[mitch]

Hey all

Just last night kegged my first time. A Thomas coopers pilsner
Turned out great .But the problem i seem to have is that after force carbonating the keg i found i have great head and head retention but the carbonation seems only to be on the top of the beer and none throughout. Is this normal with force carbonation ?? Should i try to naturally carbonate next time??Also could i have a leak in the keg fittings because it seems the fitting need to be fairly loose the get the CUB style fittings to get bloody connected right .

Cheers Mitch

[luke]

Hey all

Just last night kegged my first time. A Thomas coopers pilsner
Turned out great .But the problem i seem to have is that after force carbonating the keg i found i have great head and head retention but the carbonation seems only to be on the top of the beer and none throughout. Is this normal with force carbonation ?? Should i try to naturally carbonate next time??Also could i have a leak in the keg fittings because it seems the fitting need to be fairly loose the get the CUB style fittings to get bloody connected right .

Cheers Mitch

I found if you drop the temperature of the beer in the keg, (leave the keg in fridge over night) then force carbonate, all is good.

[Hashie]

I only ever naturally carb my kegs and have never had any dramas.

BTW I have 9 kegs so 2 weeks to carb is no problem.

[pharmaboy]

hashie, with your kegs,how much sediment do you get, does it all come through in the first glass or 2 or what. I have been thinking about oing this is it theoretically would be better for conditioning but i am not sure.

any advice would be appreciated.

[Hashie]

The sediment is generally thrown out within the first galss or 2.

I feel that it is a better way, the main reason for me doing home brew, is having naturally brewed and conditioned beer. So naturally carb'ing is keeping it all natural, and the beer tastes better IMO.

[Shaun]

Hey all

Just last night kegged my first time. A Thomas coopers pilsner
Turned out great .But the problem i seem to have is that after force carbonating the keg i found i have great head and head retention but the carbonation seems only to be on the top of the beer and none throughout. Is this normal with force carbonation ?? Should i try to naturally carbonate next time??Also could i have a leak in the keg fittings because it seems the fitting need to be fairly loose the get the CUB style fittings to get bloody connected right .

Cheers Mitch

Does it look flat or taste flat? If it only looks flat all is good. If it tastes flat give it some more gas and all will be good.

[mitch]

Thanks for the replies guys.
I have since found my C02 reg was faulty what i thought was 70 kpa about 170 or something which was just frothing as it hit the glass .
Borrowed another reg set pressure no problems. Another Question Does anyone know whether you can keep your reg and c02 bottle in the fridge too???


Cheers Mitch

[Hashie]

Mine live in the fridge and have never given me any concern.

[kurtz]

Couple of things:
Natural Carbonation and force carbonation achieve the same thing but they take basically the same time. You have to get the CO2 to dissolve in the beer, just as trout like cold water because it has more dissolved gases then cold beer absorbs more CO2.
A good trick if you are a hurry and have fairly bright beer (say kegged from a bright beer tank) is to chill the bxjexus out of the beer pump it up high with CO2 and shake the shayt out of it (rolling works wel), you can tell its absorbed a lot of CO2 (its a surface area thing) because it will take a lot more gas, so do it again and so on, not perfect but pretty good, and fast.

K

[Shaun]

Couple of things:
Natural Carbonation and force carbonation achieve the same thing but they take basically the same time. You have to get the CO2 to dissolve in the beer, just as trout like cold water because it has more dissolved gases then cold beer absorbs more CO2.
A good trick if you are a hurry and have fairly bright beer (say kegged from a bright beer tank) is to chill the bxjexus out of the beer pump it up high with CO2 and shake the shayt out of it (rolling works wel), you can tell its absorbed a lot of CO2 (its a surface area thing) because it will take a lot more gas, so do it again and so on, not perfect but pretty good, and fast.

K

No they do not basically take the same time and the method you have described to speed it up is more accurate than any other way of carbonating. Not as you have described it as "not perfect but pretty good, and fast" it is perfect if you know what you are doing and fast.

Force carbonating can be achieved in about 15 minutes in a beer that is around 20 deg. Natural carbonation will take as long as the conditioning takes. The yeast needs to convert the sugar to CO2 which is dispelled from the beer increasing the head pressure. The beer then slowly reabsorbs the CO2 until equilibrium is reached between the CO2 in the head space and the CO2 dissolved in the beer.

When force carbonating you do as the name suggests you force CO2 into the beer. True that cold beer will absorb CO2 more readily than warm however agitated beer also absorbs CO2 more readily then still beer. By agitating the beer as you force CO2 into the head space the beer absorbs the CO2 as long as there is a greater pressure in the head space than in the absorbed level of CO2 in the beer. Hence you can over carbonate a beer force carbonating.

If you think you need to wait two to three days for a keg of beer to carbonate you are waiting to long. I regularly carbonate kegs at 20 deg in about 10-15 minutes and start drinking them as soon as they are cold.

If you do not agree have a read of the sticky on carbonating kegs and give it a go, it works, perfect carbonation level every time regardless of the temperature of the beer and all in under 20 minutes!!!!