Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Force Carbonation of Kegs

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Phew, one of the liveliest threads for a long time.

    Going back to David Quinns query. Lots of breweries filter their beer, and then flash pasteurise, between the bright beer tank and keg filler, or indeed between bright beer tank and bottle if aseptically filling. Sizes vary from a couple of hundred hectolitres to tens of thousands of hectolitres per week. Alternatively you can sterile filter and then fill asptically, again, into keg or bottle.

    Personally I think any form of filtration changes the character of the beer considerably, and I suspect not many would disagree. The problem with non sterile filtration (as state - 0.4 micron absolute) is that you are always going to get some yeast and bacteria passing through, which can grow up sufficiently to cause hazes and or off flavours.

    The problems with pasteurisation include difficulty in accurately controlling the flow rate and temperatures to give accurate numbers of PUs (pasteurisation units) and difficulties keeping the gas insolution at high temperatures. Micro bubbles of CO2 are liable to form round yeast and bacteria which helps protect them against the effects of the heat. Finally of course, there are the flavour changes generated by heat, even during flash pasteurisation, especially in presence of oxygen. As always, the higher the oxygen level, the more noticeable the flavour changes are likely to be.

    Finally, most breweries in the UK use in line heat exchanger, typically of the ice pack type at point of dispense, sometimes with the cooling lines extending into the font. Cellars for the kegs, should be cool, but often are not - regularly reccommended temperature being 55 deg F.

    Cheers
    dick

    Comment


    • #17
      Hand carbonating kegs is actually easy if you have only a few to do.
      First the beer must be cold and you need to know exactly what temp it is at.
      Next use a CO2 carbonation chart (Do not use a Zahm and Nagle tester chart!) and find on the chart the temp of your beer, the CO2 "volume" you want in the beer, and from this find the equilibrium pressure for that desired carbonation.
      Using CO2, draw off a couple pints of the beer so the beer level in the keg is below the top dome of the keg. This exposes the maximum surface area of the beer for greater carbonation ability. The less beer in the keg, the sooner you will come to ideal carbonation. You could even use two half-full kegs and later mix them together for one full. The headspace must have absolutely no air-just CO2.
      Set up a CO2 tank and regulator near the kegs and hook the gas line into the beer part of the coupler. (you will need to remove the check valve and plug the other coupler port) Set the regulator pressure at the equilibrium pressure found on the chart. (Setting a higher pressure goes much faster! With practice you can use higher pressure at first, say 35-40 psi , then fine tune the carbonation with the equilibrium pressure.) In a quiet place, shake the kegs by vigorously rocking and with your ear to the regulator, you can hear the CO2 feeding the kegs. When you shake the kegs and hear no more CO2, you're done. A little sterile water in a loop of the CO2 hose would give you a visual clue instead of listening. Remember to fill the kegs back up when finished. It would save shaking to just set all kegs at about 30-35 psi overnite, then fine tune in the morning.

      Comment


      • #18
        Force carbonating in kegs

        I have been force carbonating beer in kegs for the last 5 years at a very small (1bbl) commercial brewery. All we have set up is a filtration/carbonation unit that we purchased from a bop that went out of business. The beer is filtered and carbonated cold. It takes about 10 minutes to carbonate a 1/2 bbl keg. Once the beer is carbonated, we can either put it on draft at our restaurant (we currently have 22 house brews on draft), we can bottle it (simple single head counter pressure bottle filler), or we can send the beer out for events. Only time that I have run into a problem is when the weather gets super hot out (95+ degrees) and is run through a jockey box - but 99% of the time - great beer with no carbonation issues.

        You can contact some bop manufacturers in Canada for more info on the carbonation unit.

        Cheers,

        Brian
        brewer44@juno.com

        Comment

        Working...
        X