Brite tank carbonation taking forever

[Luch15]

OK, I know this has been discussed before but I am having trouble getting beer carbed in a brite in less than 6-7 days. I have read posts here about people carbonating in 1 day or even several hours. Here is my process and equipment if anyone sees some glaring issue please chime in. Thanks.

1. Transfer from fermenter to brite (both 5 bbl tanks) in cold room 3.5 to 5 bbl depending on beer, beer transferred in is at 60f. Beer is at atmospheric when transferred.

2. Apply 14psi to stone (stone is 9.5' x 1' 2 micron) tank head pressure is equal to stone pressure within 20 minutes. The tank is dish bottom, stone is at the top of the dish bottom protrudes into tank 9.5 inches. Tank is 36 inches in diameter.

3. Beer is at 35f within 24 to 36 hours depending on what else is going in or out of the walk in.

4. on average 4/10 of a volume of co2 goes into solution per day, taking 7 days to get to 2.8 then losing .12 or so kegging.

Compared to other breweries it seems to be taking forever. I do not vent the head space while carbing, potentially dangerous in a cold room and not good for the beer.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks again.

[brewmaster 2011]

When you cap and crash the beer in the fermenter leave a co2 line on it at 15 psi. when you transfer the beer try to keep 5 psi in the brite tank so you don't lose the co2 in the beer. that should help carb it up quicker

[Ted R.]

Brite tank carbonation taking forever

Hold off on carbonating till the beer is down to temp.

If your tank pressure if equal to the pressure set on your stone in 20 minutes I would check my stone. Is it one piece or assembled? Sounds like large bubbles are going straight to the head space instead of small bubbles going into solution.

[ColdFusion]

Since you aren't using this particular procedure, I thought I might point you to this thread: http://www.probrewer.com/vbulletin/s...ad.php?t=24886

You may have already seen it but it has a number of tips that may help.

In addition to the tips above, a flow meter might be useful to tune the pressure behind your stone. You want to pressurize the vessel first, then apply a certain flow rate to the stone.

[Luch15]

Hold off on carbonating till the beer is down to temp.

If your tank pressure if equal to the pressure set on your stone in 20 minutes I would check my stone. Is it one piece or assembled? Sounds like large bubbles are going straight to the head space instead of small bubbles going into solution.

It is a 2 piece stone, hadn't considered that possibility. Sounds like it could be contributing to the problem. I'll check that Friday when the current batch kegs off.

[yap]

I always check my assembled stone in a bucket of sanitizer before putting in the tank. hook up the CO2 and if you have big bubbles you need to tighten the nut on the stone more. I have to get my brand new stone so tight that I am afraid of breaking something in order for it not to leach big bubbles. since you say the headspace is up to pressure in no time I'll bet this is your problem.

also make sure you are accounting for the cracking pressure of the stone. I have to set my regulator to about 20 psi to get about 12-13 through the stone. I usually set it lower for the first day while the beer cools down (transfer to brite happens at about 55 F) and then crank up on day two. its done in two days.....

you could maybe look at setting up an inline system to help things out but at 60 F then may not be worth it.

[jfulton]

I'll second what Scott said. While working for Newlands Systems, I had to tighten the new stones on just about every install I did for a couple years. They were all consistently loose: throwing huge bubbles into the wort stream. Just be sure not to tighten it too much or that sucker could break! The ones we provided were tricky in that you needed a special deep socket to hold the supply side nut. I pretty much carried one around with me everywhere i went We sourced those assemblies from another manufacturer in Canada - they were not a Newlands product - so I'm sure there's plenty of folks with loose carb/O2 stones out there.

[Luch15]

hey thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely check that stone tomorrow when I keg off. As far as the cracking pressure I never turned up the reg because I was reaching head pressure so quickly and the tank is only rated to 15 and the PRV is set 14.7. we have checked it in a bucket but it's worth checking again. Thanks again.

[Luch15]

Follow up. Stone was leaking a bit, a stream of bubbles although not very big but that is what was pressurizing the tank quickly. Fixed that issue, we put our IPA in the tank yesterday, today it is at 2.8 vols of co2. Thanks for the tip, worked out perfect.

[JDrum]

Follow up. Stone was leaking a bit, a stream of bubbles although not very big but that is what was pressurizing the tank quickly. Fixed that issue, we put our IPA in the tank yesterday, today it is at 2.8 vols of co2. Thanks for the tip, worked out perfect.

Interesting... I'm having the exact same issue. Checked the stone (2 piece) in a bucket of sanitizer and sure enough it was leaking quite badly at the connection. No wonder I was never having a problem with the single piece stones! Thanks for the replies on this thread!

[Fullcourt]

Hold off on carbonating till the beer is down to temp.

If your tank pressure if equal to the pressure set on your stone in 20 minutes I would check my stone. Is it one piece or assembled? Sounds like large bubbles are going straight to the head space instead of small bubbles going into solution.

Carbonation is very temperature dependent. Since you tanks are in a walkin, the reading at the thermowell on the bottom of the tank might say "35", but higher up in the tank the beer might be much warmer. I agree with Ted R, start the carbonation when the beer is cold.

[ponysaurusbrew]

How are you measuring the volume of CO2 dissolved in the tank?

[Luch15]

How are you measuring the volume of CO2 dissolved in the tank?

Taprite 2701 BCT from Foxx Equipment.

[ponysaurusbrew]

Taprite 2701 BCT from Foxx Equipment.

Very cool. Thanks.

[Cellarfeller]

Carb Stone still leaking a bit

So I've been reading these carbing posts for awhile, and I can't express enough how informative they have all been, thank you.

My situation is this, I've been checking my stones every time I assemble a tank because ours stones were pretty beat up on the mating/gasket surface and I was determined to make them not leak. Well most of the time I succeeded but some of them were so bad they leaked regardless. Fast forward we got new stones, well things still leaked a bit so I pushed for new stone gaskets. Well we got them and I still get a few bubbles. I guess my question is, is there an acceptable amount of leaking? And to clarify the stones are leaking mostly from the point where the stone meets the white gasket (closest to C02 source). Am I being too anal about this? is there always going to be a few bubbles forming?

Thanks,

Pete