re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread

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What made you decide 40 psi for 24 hours?

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I personally do the 40 PSI and rock the keg around for 60-90 secs. This is on a crashed cooled (down to 36ish) and gelatined beer. It's just easiest for me to do it like that. Crank it up to 40, shake it around, put in keezer and lower back to serving pressure so all other beers on tap stay where they are and can continue to be served normally.

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I personally do the 40 PSI and rock the keg around for 60-90 secs. This is on a crashed cooled (down to 36ish) and gelatined beer. It's just easiest for me to do it like that. Crank it up to 40, shake it around, put in keezer and lower back to serving pressure so all other beers on tap stay where they are and can continue to be served normally.

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That's pretty much what I do... shut off the valves to the other kegs, put the keg in the keezer, crank the PSI up to 30-40, shake it well every time I walk by, after a day or so drop the PSI back to 8-10 range, and open up the valves to the other kegs. If I want to drink off of the other kegs while I'm force carbing, there is usually enough residual pressure to pour a few beers.

So to get the process correct. This is the plan.

1) May cold crash my beer for a couple days to about 40-45 degrees.
2) Push some CO2 into the keg.
3) Rack the brew into the keg.
4) Attach the gas line and set the PSI to 40 on the regulator. (Question: Do i have to remove the gas in line or shut off the regulator valve when i do this? Or should i leave the gas line on and pressurized at 40 psi? What i'm asking, is does the regulator "regulate" the gas in the keg so as it does not continuously push gas in the keg, or does it shut off the gas flow once it hits the 40 psi mark? (and i think i just answered my question there, just trying to understand how it all works).
5) Once at 40 psi for 24 hours, release the valve to bring the pressure down to 8-10 psi.
6) Let sit for 1 or 2 days. Connect beer line and serve.

That being worked out in my head brings up another question, how do i force carb to a specific CO2 volume? Could i force carb the same way as above, but when i drop the pressure, use a chart to determine the psi i want that correlates to the style?

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Utilizing the 40psi method carbonating to a specific amount is virtually impossible bc you have no real way to monitor the carbonation level other than "Is it carbed...Yes, No, Maybe"

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Gotcha. So the only true way, is to determine the volume of CO2 wanted for style, then set your regulator to that psi and wait it out for 5-7 days?

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Gotcha. So the only true way, is to determine the volume of CO2 wanted for style, then set your regulator to that psi and wait it out for 5-7 days?

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In my experience if you follow B's steps (I go 30 psi for 24 then 10 psi) I end up with a carbonation level that works for about 75% of the beers I brew. If I want a beer to have a higher I set it to 12 psi after 24 or lower carbonation I set it to 7 psi afterwards.

Increasing the amount of dissolved CO2 is easy... decreasing it is a pain in the arse so I typically err on the side of under carbonation and increase if needed.

So I disassembled my keg and washing everything. Am I supposed to have poppets somewhere?

You mean the beer in gas out posts? They are that small? Are you supposed to remove them? And if so, how?

I use a philips head screw driver. Press on the center 'button' and they pop out of the post.

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How do you get them back in?

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Insert it back into the post... it'll tighten into place when you tighten the post back onto the keg.

If you've got new O-rings I'd take the old ones off and give those posts a good soak in hot PBW. poppets even have their own little O-rings too.