Happiness is 24 hrs at 50 psi

[Matt F]

"Happiness is 24 hrs at 50 psi" was a phrase created by the good Dr. late last night. What does it mean? Maybe some of you do this already, but as of a couple weeks ago, it was new to me. I use to hook up my kegs and leave the gas at 10-12 psi and wait a week or so for carbonation. I always feared over carbonation from speeding up the process. Well now I have a new way to carbonate and drink in a day that I have really enjoyed on my last couple beers. I saw this in the write up in Zymurgy about Hop-Fu recently.

1) Cold crash your fermenter. Get the beer cold. This starts the cold conditioning process and really clears up a beer.
2) Rack cold beer to a clean and sanitized keg. Flush with CO2 however you like. I hit the keg with CO2 before racking to try to reduce oxidation.
3) Hook up keg to CO2 and flush out air again.
4) Crank up CO2 to 50 psi. Leave at 50 psi for 24 hours.
5) Just one day later, beer is carbonated and ready to drink.

Works really well, like when you keg a beer a couple days before a beer festival and it needs to be ready to go. If you give this a shot, check for leaks. I had some new leaks show up at this pressure that were easy to fix by tightening up a few things. At 50 psi, I knew I had a leak because I could hear it. Enjoy.

[DrPaulsen]

I can confirm that this technique works very well. I left a helles fresh from the lagerator on 50 psi for 21 hrs. Perfect pour from the first pint. There is some risk with this technique as 48 hrs is likely way too much CO2, but if you can remember to set an alarm, it's awesome. I'll be doing this for all my kegged beers from now on.

[andrewmaixner]

I was wondering about that a while ago since my atrophied chemistry background tole me that that there would be a formula you could create for dissolved volumes at a given time of constant Temperature/Pressure/Surface_Area. See this for more indepth math and eventually a formula: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/calling ... ost6365744

[DrPaulsen]

Thanks. Punching in my numbers of 50 psi, 21 hrs, and 39F, I get 2.4 volumes of CO2. Seems about right given the fizz in my glass and the quality of the pour. I'm pretty sure it was 21 hrs & 39F, but who knows if it was exactly 50 psi, since I've never checked the accuracy of my regulator gauge at those pressures.

Volumes (Pa,T,t) = [(0.17*Pa*(1-e^(-0.014*t)))+3.04]*e^[(0.0006*Ln(Pa*(1-e^(-0.014*t)))-0.02)*T]

Pa is gauge pressure in psi
T is Temperature in F
t is time in hours

*Assumptions: you are starting with beer from your primary or secondary at 0.8 to 1.2 volumes, in a 5 gallon corney keg, and no shaking.

Sanity check...at 30psi and 40F you should hit ~2.1 volumes in 24 hours or 2.4 volumes in 36 hours.

[bf514921]

I thought every one carbonated like that, have I been doing it wrong all this time

[DrPaulsen]

Yes you have.

[bf514921]

Huh, I was always a 30 psi 36- 48 hour guy

[czubak]

I used to do 25-30 for a few days and now I am more thoughtful of the processes in this hobby I have been trying to teach myself patience. Autosparge, whirlpool, etc. So I have been doing it at ~12psi and waiting a couple weeks.

Next to be kegged will be done like this for a side by side.

[carrisr]

Of course the it should be ovious, but since it may not be so to beginners: step 6 should be reduce the gas pressure to 8-10 psi for serving. Assuming standard lines and lengths.

[DrPaulsen]

Using the equation quoted above, I built a simple Google Sheets calculator and plotted Volumes of CO2 vs time, assuming a 50 psi head pressure and 39F conditioning temp. At some point, I'll likely share the google sheet with everyone, but I figured this would be a good start.

[czubak]

Should have a Belgian ready tomorrow night


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[whitedj]

50 PSI for 48 hrs is too much [emoji22]

[czubak]

Worked great for me the last two brews. Hmm


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[DrPaulsen]

I've been doing 40-45 psi for around 24 hrs with good results for the last 6 or 7 batches.

[Matt F]

Been doing this for a while now. The key is more than 24hrs requires lower psi. 50psi for 48 hours is really carbonated. I have been going slightly under 50psi as my fridge tends to be 38F or a bit lower.