Do not vent.
Although it seems I'm doing so now... There is no reason to vent and there are no advantages to venting. None. Unless you want to waste CO2 and strip your beer of aroma and give your beer a CO2 bite and kill your head formation and retention. I know it's an old thread, but I think someone needs to address this. Ted and Charronc, I'm totally and intimately familiar with ideal gas law. That is not the issue here. We are speaking primarily about dissolution of CO2 into beer at a set temperature and with a set head pressure. Not varying the head pressure and temperature--where the ideal gas law would come into play to tell us how much volume and what quantity of gas we need. IF you close the CIP arm and you get no CO2 flow into your beer, then your beer is saturated with CO2. IF you close the CIP arm and your tank pressure increases, then your beer is saturated with CO2. IF your applied pressure equals the resistance of the system, then your beer is saturated with CO2. Ideally, and at or near equilibrium of course. If you introduce massive bubbles that just glug through your beer, then yes--you will explode your tank with no real increase in carbonation. But if you are carbonating gently and slowly with proper head pressure and beer temperature, then your CO2 gas will dissolve into solution. Not contribute to head pressure. Venting your CO2 does nothing except allow your beer to become a conduit for CO2 flow from your stone through your beer and back out of your beer to the atmosphere. How could that possibly be good for carbonation? I just don't get it. And years of practical experience back this up. Ask yourself where the CO2 comes from when you vent? It comes from your carbonation stone, through your beer, foams at the surface and leaves via the exact same (but in reverse) mechanism as carbonating with head pressure. Froptus, I agree that if you want to LOWER your carbonation (hope that never happens), then you can use venting and bumping the system to disturb the equilibrium and strip CO2 from your beer. In that case, venting is the only way to rid the beer of excess CO2. But it certainly does not help increase carbonation levels. I know many good brewers still vent. And some otherwise good books that recommend venting. I just don't think that they need to. I welcome any dialogue here to the contrary as I am perplexed why this practice exists.
Although it seems I'm doing so now... There is no reason to vent and there are no advantages to venting. None. Unless you want to waste CO2 and strip your beer of aroma and give your beer a CO2 bite and kill your head formation and retention. I know it's an old thread, but I think someone needs to address this. Ted and Charronc, I'm totally and intimately familiar with ideal gas law. That is not the issue here. We are speaking primarily about dissolution of CO2 into beer at a set temperature and with a set head pressure. Not varying the head pressure and temperature--where the ideal gas law would come into play to tell us how much volume and what quantity of gas we need. IF you close the CIP arm and you get no CO2 flow into your beer, then your beer is saturated with CO2. IF you close the CIP arm and your tank pressure increases, then your beer is saturated with CO2. IF your applied pressure equals the resistance of the system, then your beer is saturated with CO2. Ideally, and at or near equilibrium of course. If you introduce massive bubbles that just glug through your beer, then yes--you will explode your tank with no real increase in carbonation. But if you are carbonating gently and slowly with proper head pressure and beer temperature, then your CO2 gas will dissolve into solution. Not contribute to head pressure. Venting your CO2 does nothing except allow your beer to become a conduit for CO2 flow from your stone through your beer and back out of your beer to the atmosphere. How could that possibly be good for carbonation? I just don't get it. And years of practical experience back this up. Ask yourself where the CO2 comes from when you vent? It comes from your carbonation stone, through your beer, foams at the surface and leaves via the exact same (but in reverse) mechanism as carbonating with head pressure. Froptus, I agree that if you want to LOWER your carbonation (hope that never happens), then you can use venting and bumping the system to disturb the equilibrium and strip CO2 from your beer. In that case, venting is the only way to rid the beer of excess CO2. But it certainly does not help increase carbonation levels. I know many good brewers still vent. And some otherwise good books that recommend venting. I just don't think that they need to. I welcome any dialogue here to the contrary as I am perplexed why this practice exists.
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