Is it possible to overcarbonate with a stone?

[lbc llc]

I just picked up a carbonation stone - mainly out of curiousity - and have no idea how to use the darned thing. I have been using head pressure in the past, I do not have any meters or gauges and have been going on feel, along with constant temp/pressure.

I have read that there is a formula to account for the depth of beer and the required pressure adjustment, and have also read that it is best to slowly increase pressure to the target per the CO2 charts.

Here are the basic questions:

1) is it possible to overcarbonate the beer - ie does it reach equilibrium and then stop absorbing CO2?
2) how long does it typically take to be fully carbonated?

Thanks.

[Graydon]

Carbonation with a stone

Short answer YES

I usually start forcing Co2 into the tank and wait until the pressure in the tank exceeds the target equilibrium by 2 lbs. I then open a vent on the tank just enough to maintain this pressure. When I have reached the carbonation level I desire as measured by a Zahm-Nagel, I shut down the stone and slowly bleed the Co2 pressure to the desired value. This will taken a few hours to a few days depending on your start point and equipment.

Graydon

[beerking1]

I simply set my desired pressure on the stone, and let it sit for 1-2 days. It only overcarbonates if I set the pressure too high. We have left the beer, under pressure, in the BT for 5 days without issues.
No bleeding, no issues, just let it sit a couple of days.

[GlacierBrewing]

Overcarb? Yes.
I use a stone to carb all our beers and sodas. Make sure the tank and beer is COLD! I always try to shoot for 30-31F before I start carbonating. Bring the tank to pressure (I use 15-20psi), begin bubbling CO2, crack open the CIP arm with a blow-off hose attached terminating in a bucket of sanitizer. The goal is to hold the tank at pressure equilibrium (gas in the bottom equals gas out of the top via CIP arm) while the carbonation takes place. I can get a 10bbl tank of flat beer to 3.0 volumes of CO2 in about 6-8 hours with this technique. May not be the best one but this is how I do it.

Prost!
dave

p.s. clean your stones between uses. That just generally good advice throughout life!

[SRB]

We set our pressure 16 to 18 psi. (We carb in Grundy's) And let it sit overnight. (24 hours)
We have a couple problem stones that don't perform well and they demand more attention. IE setting a higher pressure and turning it off and on when they reach 15 to 18.
Except when we are at capacity we always clean after each use. Hot spray down, shake, PBW soak one hour+ Shake repeat. Hot rinse, shake, hot rinse. Then overnight soak (or longer) in heavy concentration acid 6.
I always check before I clamp it into service. When we are at capacity I do all the same steps I just dont soak in acid overnight...just as long as i can before I need to stick it back in the next Grundy.

We dry hop most of our beer. I was under the impression that hop aroma is lost when bleeding pressure of the top. We already have aroma "loss" when we transfer to carbing/serving.
Have I been misled?

[lbc llc]

thank you for all of the replies this is very helpful.

[KevinECB]

being exact

we are a production brewery out of Virginia that distributes across a dozen states, one thing we need to worry about is consistency. so we have a small 'device' that we use to measure the volumes of Co2 in a beer before its bottled, that way the volumes remain consistent from one batch to the next. this item is not cheap, and often i have seen the measuring tools (Gew%CO2 slide rule) have german or dutch instructions only. (the scale runs from .20-1.20 but we typically are dealing with a .42-.56 range)
i have found that when carbonating i can time how long to leave the carbonation stone blowing by how much more carbonation needs to be added to solution. mostly after filtration, from a tank sitting at 1.0 bar, it will take us 30 minutes to bring up the volumes in solution (turning the Co2 line pressure way up and venting). if we mess up and it goes too high, for reasons of consistency, we let the tank sit for a while

without the device if you are working on consistency i would recommending fiddling around with it until you get a Co2 presence you like, then do it the same way from then on.

[KevinECB]

I simply set my desired pressure on the stone, and let it sit for 1-2 days. It only overcarbonates if I set the pressure too high. we have left the beer, under pressure, in the BT for 5 days without issues.
No bleeding, no issues, jsut let it sit qa couple of days.

do you pasteurize your Co2 lines afterward?
that would be my biggest fear, getting beer in the Co2 line.

[SRB]

do you pasteurize your Co2 lines afterward?
that would be my biggest fear, getting beer in the Co2 line.

Biggest fear indeed.....we have yet to set up a CIP loop cleaning assembly of our gas lines. 1 year no issues. Its on the short list for priority jobs to get done. At this point we are keeping quick release female ends in a sanitizer bucket in between service.
What are others doing?

[KevinECB]

Biggest fear indeed.....we have yet to set up a CIP loop cleaning assembly of our gas lines. 1 year no issues. Its on the short list for priority jobs to get done. At this point we are keeping quick release female ends in a sanitizer bucket in between service.
What are others doing?

we brew 24 hours a day, so stuff like that we save for the end of the brew week, every week i go around and unhook all the Co2 lines and connect them all together, with one end connected to a block and bleed manifold connected to the outlet of the HTL pump (the bleed side of the manifold connects to the Co2 line, and the block side cracked with hose to drain and no one else around...we are talking boiling water under pressure here, there probably is a slightly different safer way) and the other end of the Co2 line we place a small open portion of hose with a female release to connect to the string of other Co2 hoses....once enough boiling water has gone through, i blow Co2 through them, wrap them and connect them to themselves until they are used on Sunday by our Cellarman.

but during the week, we don't worry about it, unless we know there was beer or wort contact to the inside of the line (they are relatively sealed after all, and we do spray sanitizer on them before making any connections)

[beerking1]

we are a production brewery out of Virginia that distributes across a dozen states, one thing we need to worry about is consistency. so we have a small 'device' that we use to measure the volumes of Co2 in a beer before its bottled, that way the volumes remain consistent from one batch to the next. this item is not cheap, and often i have seen the measuring tools (Gew%CO2 slide rule) have german or dutch instructions only. (the scale runs from .20-1.20 but we typically are dealing with a .42-.56 range)
i have found that when carbonating i can time how long to leave the carbonation stone blowing by how much more carbonation needs to be added to solution. mostly after filtration, from a tank sitting at 1.0 bar, it will take us 30 minutes to bring up the volumes in solution (turning the Co2 line pressure way up and venting). if we mess up and it goes too high, for reasons of consistency, we let the tank sit for a while

without the device if you are working on consistency i would recommending fiddling around with it until you get a Co2 presence you like, then do it the same way from then on.

Good points, and very applicable to a 24 hour production brewery, but if you have the time, and don't have the meter, probably the best way to be consistent is to simply set the pressure and let it sit a day or two. If you always set the same pressure, it will always achieve the same volume of CO2 in the beer.

[beerking1]

do you pasteurize your Co2 lines afterward?
that would be my biggest fear, getting beer in the Co2 line.

We maintain CO2 pressure on the line as long as the stone is hooked up to the BT. That keeps beer our of the lines. When changing anything (disconnecting, changing pressure, etc) we close the valve on the end of the stone to prevent that.
If there is any indication that beer has gotten in the line, we soak in hot PBW, flush with 180+*F water, and then run sanitizer through.

[gitchegumee]

Why would beer ever get in the lines?

Standard operating procedure is to have a check valve threaded directly to the stone. Why is there such fear of beer in the lines? We have never had this happen.

[SRB]

We have check valves on our stones....but SOP is sometimes not followed due to mental error etc. (rookies) I have also had our co2 tank run out over night and back pressure pushes beer into the line. (rookies)

[KevinECB]

Standard operating procedure is to have a check valve threaded directly to the stone. Why is there such fear of beer in the lines? We have never had this happen.

Valve failure.

it happens especially when equipment gets old, used often, or was purchased secondhand perhaps exposed to the elements.

i know its highly unlikely, so i guess you can call it, old fashioned brewer paranoia