Carb stone issues - can I solve it this way?

[STL Brewer]

Hi all

I have a carb stone that will not work in a full unitank. I have check all components I can get too and it's definitely the carb stone (brand new 12" from gw kent). I do not have a bbt or another unitank to transfer to do have to figure something out using what I have. This is where a second opinion would be greatly appreciated.

What I've done is attach a loop from the bottom port to a pump to the racking arm. I've taken my oxygenation stone and put it on the lower port and attached a co2 line it. I've set the co2 psi to 20 and have 12 psi headspace on the tank. I'm running the pump pretty slow circulating the beer through the loop. Would love to hear if I'm doing something wrong or if I should be careful of something. So far it's been in the loop for about 3 hours but I can't tell if it's working (taste and zahm suggest not). It's foaming a fair amount of the sample valve too. Some expert advice would come in real handy right now.

Thanks

[mmussen]

I've carbonated in Brite tanks without a port for a co2 stone by putting the stone in some SS tubing and attaching it the bottom butterfly valve on the tank. Then turning on the CO2 - the process usually took about 2 days to fully carbonate. But it did work. My gut says not to run the pump. But I'm not sure...
And why can't you use the Carb stone? Did you check the wetting pressure to make sure it worked as it should before installing it?

[soia1138]

There is no need to go through all that. Just put a sight glass on the racking port then out your O2 stone into the sight glass. Open the racking arm (making sure you cleared it out first). Set your head pressure on the tank to about .5 to 1 psi below where your desired saturation level for the amount CO2 you want (ie, 10psi @ 33F = 2.6 volumes). Slowly increase the CO2 regulator pressure until you just start to see flow then leave it. You should notice a small drop in your head pressure after a little time then it will start to rise. This rise is telling you that you are near saturation, the flow on the stone will stop when you reach saturation and that should be right about at your target. I've carbonated many times using my O2 stone in this way and it works great. I can go home and come back in the morning to a fully carbonated tank. No guessing or babysitting and no need for a zahm even at this point.

Also, of course it's foaming at the sample valve. You have no restriction to balance.

[STL Brewer]

There is no need to go through all that. Just put a sight glass on the racking port then out your O2 stone into the sight glass. Open the racking arm (making sure you cleared it out first). Set your head pressure on the tank to about .5 to 1 psi below where your desired saturation level for the amount CO2 you want (ie, 10psi @ 33F = 2.6 volumes). Slowly increase the CO2 regulator pressure until you just start to see flow then leave it. You should notice a small drop in your head pressure after a little time then it will start to rise. This rise is telling you that you are near saturation, the flow on the stone will stop when you reach saturation and that should be right about at your target. I've carbonated many times using my O2 stone in this way and it works great. I can go home and come back in the morning to a fully carbonated tank. No guessing or babysitting and no need for a zahm even at this point.

Also, of course it's foaming at the sample valve. You have no restriction to balance.

That sounds way simpler! I'm going to try that tonight.

Thanks for the great advice guys.

[STL Brewer]

That sounds way simpler! I'm going to try that tonight.

Thanks for the great advice guys.

I tried the soia1138 method of carb stone troubleshooting and let it run over night. Set head pressure to 9.5, attached oxygenation stone directly to racking arm and cracked it open a little until it just started to flow. Came in this morning to see the head pressure was at 10, flow had slowed right down, and even if I opened it up completely the flow had come to a standstill. So it looks liked it worked perfectly.

With head pressure of 10 psi I am still getting a ton of foam out the sample valve. When the foam dies down there are some beautiful bubbles clinging to the side of my glass so I know it worked. I need to keg this beer off but worried that I'm going to be kegging foam which will die down to about 2/3 of a full keg. Do I need to take off the head pressure so there is no resistance? I would think that would start uncarbing my beer which would not be cool.

Thanks

[mmussen]

Are you adding resistance when you take your sample? If you're just taking a sample straight out of a port without adding enough resistance (just like balancing your draft system) you'll get nothing but foam and have no way to accurately see/test carbonation in your product.
As for filling kegs If you fill the kegs under pressure, slowly you shouldn't have any foam issues. The kegs needs to have the same pressure in them as the tank has and then you can fill the keg while slowly bleeding off the pressure. That way the keg fills slowly and without foam.

[STL Brewer]

Are you adding resistance when you take your sample? If you're just taking a sample straight out of a port without adding enough resistance (just like balancing your draft system) you'll get nothing but foam and have no way to accurately see/test carbonation in your product.
As for filling kegs If you fill the kegs under pressure, slowly you shouldn't have any foam issues. The kegs needs to have the same pressure in them as the tank has and then you can fill the keg while slowly bleeding off the pressure. That way the keg fills slowly and without foam.

Sorry for what seems like an obvious answer but how do I put resistance when taking a sample? My thoughts are to have a longer hose that offers some resistance but that doesn't help when trying to connect my zahm.

[mmussen]

I pressurize my Zahm before hooking it up and then slowly fill it until foam stops coming out of the top and its full of beer. It takes a bit of practice.

[STL Brewer]

I pressurize my Zahm before hooking it up and then slowly fill it until foam stops coming out of the top and its full of beer. It takes a bit of practice.

Thanks - just tried it out with the zahm (which I suddenly in a flash of light realized it is counter pressured) and got a reading of 40F with 11.5 psi so around 2.35. Looks like I need to go little longer if I'm aiming at 2.65.

Thanks for your help!

[BrewinLou]

To properly sample use a pig tail sample valve. Then you will get a very good idea of where your carb stands.

[soia1138]

I tried the soia1138 method of carb stone troubleshooting and let it run over night. Set head pressure to 9.5, attached oxygenation stone directly to racking arm and cracked it open a little until it just started to flow. Came in this morning to see the head pressure was at 10, flow had slowed right down, and even if I opened it up completely the flow had come to a standstill. So it looks liked it worked perfectly.

With head pressure of 10 psi I am still getting a ton of foam out the sample valve. When the foam dies down there are some beautiful bubbles clinging to the side of my glass so I know it worked. I need to keg this beer off but worried that I'm going to be kegging foam which will die down to about 2/3 of a full keg. Do I need to take off the head pressure so there is no resistance? I would think that would start uncarbing my beer which would not be cool.

Thanks

I will add this that might be helpful. On my current tanks I find that if my tank gauge reading is for example 10psi I will actually have 9psi in the beer. This is very consistent for me so if i'm shooting for 2.6 volumes at 33F, which is my norm crash temp, then I'm looking for 11 gauge psi. This might be the difference in your carb levels.

[JNS]

soia1138 Bumping this old thread back up. I am having a similar issue in that I think the carb stone in my brite tank has a bad seal between the stone and housing so the incoming CO2 is just pumping in to the tank, increasing head pressure quite quickly but the bubbles are to large to go in to solution.

My brite tank does not have a racking arm, I am trying your method via the port from the bottom of the dish, through a block and bleed setup to a site glass with my O2 stone in there. I set my pressures as you describe, but it blows all the beer out of the site glass/block and bleed setup and I see large bubbles of CO2 going up the fill level site glass on the tank.

Any ideas? I don't have any empty tanks to transfer too... Worst case I can try this method of carbonating on an FV through the racking arm to get one of those beers out, transfer the beer in the brite to that FV, fix the carb stone... re-transfer.... but....

Any help is much apprecitated!