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Force Carbonation in keg, straight into bottles?
- Thread starter mrskittle
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Ah, the lies we tell ourselves.... Brewing is a money pit. Its only financial saving grace is you get beer out of it. Pricey beer, but beer....
(I dumped over $100 into that pit yesterday and don't regret a cent of it!)
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I forgot about the super cheap 'keg'. Reuse your PET soft drink bottles.
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The plastic ones are cheap, I have 1 stainless one, I use it to carbonate a sample to get a feel for what I have created. The plastic ones are cheap enough to buy a few, if you use 2 liter soda bottles, you could travel with 4 force carbonated pints per bottle. You could easily carbonate those in a few hours if you kept them charged at 30PSI and shook them pretty regularly.
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Well, my issue has been solved in the best way possible. the folks at my destination have procured a co2 tank. My plan is to keg it the night before we leave and do some mild force carbonating. That should leave about 8 hrs in the fridge at maybe 20 psi and another 3 hrs bouncing around in my camper for the ride. I'll bleed off the excess pressure when we arrive and repressurize at 10-12 psi. Hopefully, we'll be drinking it within a few hours of my arrival.
I again thank all of you for the ideas. There really are a lot of options. As I said before, the 3 gallon SS keg and small charger seem like the simplest and most reliable way to go. I checky my local HBS and they did have a setup but it was over 2x the price than someplace like Adventures in Homebrewing. I'm a big advocate for shopping locally, but that's just a bit hard to swallow. Maybe I'll make an offer and see if they are willing to move a little closer to an online price.
As far as spending money... Brewing is a hobby. Like most hobbies, it can cost as much or little as you want to spend. Like most other hobbies, brewing is a rabbit hole that you can really go down. Like most, I started with a super simple extract setup and was really excited. Then I peeked into the hole and quickly fell in. First it was a bigger pot, then I wanted to try partial mash brewing, then I got sick of bottles and got kegs, next it'll be the portable keg, and sooner or later I"m sure I'll get sucked into all-grain. That mean's an even bigger kettle, maybe a mash tun, and on and on... Its the story of most all your lives I bet. About the only way you can justify the idea that it saves money is the price of ingredients for a batch vs. the price to buy the equivalent volume of commercial beer. It's all the equipment that's the money pit.
I again thank all of you for the ideas. There really are a lot of options. As I said before, the 3 gallon SS keg and small charger seem like the simplest and most reliable way to go. I checky my local HBS and they did have a setup but it was over 2x the price than someplace like Adventures in Homebrewing. I'm a big advocate for shopping locally, but that's just a bit hard to swallow. Maybe I'll make an offer and see if they are willing to move a little closer to an online price.
As far as spending money... Brewing is a hobby. Like most hobbies, it can cost as much or little as you want to spend. Like most other hobbies, brewing is a rabbit hole that you can really go down. Like most, I started with a super simple extract setup and was really excited. Then I peeked into the hole and quickly fell in. First it was a bigger pot, then I wanted to try partial mash brewing, then I got sick of bottles and got kegs, next it'll be the portable keg, and sooner or later I"m sure I'll get sucked into all-grain. That mean's an even bigger kettle, maybe a mash tun, and on and on... Its the story of most all your lives I bet. About the only way you can justify the idea that it saves money is the price of ingredients for a batch vs. the price to buy the equivalent volume of commercial beer. It's all the equipment that's the money pit.
Awesome! I"m glad that it's working out.
I did want to clear up some terminology, now that you've got your situation sorted.
The words "force carbonation" refer to adding c02 to beer to carbonate it. That's because the co2 is "forced" into the liquid to produce the bubbles. I force carb all my kegs, by hooking up the co2. My preferred carb level for most beers is about 2.5 volumes of co2, which is 12 psi for the temperature I have in my fridge.
So if you keg and don't use priming sugar, you are "force carbonating".
When you are in a hurry, and want to force carb more quickly, you may set your regulator to 30 psi for a day or two, or do that and shake the keg, etc. That's called "burst carbonation"- that is, giving the beer a "burst" of higher pressure to encourage it to force carb fasting.
So, you are "burst carbonating" in this situation.
I hope that makes sense! We all know what you meant, and I don't want to be pedantic, but I wanted to mention this in case there is some confusion in the future.
I did want to clear up some terminology, now that you've got your situation sorted.
The words "force carbonation" refer to adding c02 to beer to carbonate it. That's because the co2 is "forced" into the liquid to produce the bubbles. I force carb all my kegs, by hooking up the co2. My preferred carb level for most beers is about 2.5 volumes of co2, which is 12 psi for the temperature I have in my fridge.
So if you keg and don't use priming sugar, you are "force carbonating".
When you are in a hurry, and want to force carb more quickly, you may set your regulator to 30 psi for a day or two, or do that and shake the keg, etc. That's called "burst carbonation"- that is, giving the beer a "burst" of higher pressure to encourage it to force carb fasting.
So, you are "burst carbonating" in this situation.
I hope that makes sense! We all know what you meant, and I don't want to be pedantic, but I wanted to mention this in case there is some confusion in the future.
You won't regret it! And neither will they! There is nothing like hosting a party with homebrew on tap!
Update:
The beer was a big hit! It didn't make it to the second day. A bonus of the weekend is that I brought home the little 5lb CO2 tank that we used on the keg. The guy who provided it forget he even had it until we asked him. Considering that, I figured he'd be fine parting with it for $20. Now I just need a 3 gallon keg that'll fit in my camper fridge and I'm ready to rock.
The beer was a big hit! It didn't make it to the second day. A bonus of the weekend is that I brought home the little 5lb CO2 tank that we used on the keg. The guy who provided it forget he even had it until we asked him. Considering that, I figured he'd be fine parting with it for $20. Now I just need a 3 gallon keg that'll fit in my camper fridge and I'm ready to rock.
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FTW!
