Best way to measure carbonation Vols in kegs

[WWSean]

Hello All,

New to the forum so first off hello!

I am trying to find the best way/Tool to measure carbonation levels in my kegs. ATM we force carb as we don't have BBT yet. We are in the process of building our new brew house but won't be up and running for a number of months. We run a 1/2BBL SABCO and carb in the keg. Once the new facility is up and running I want to make sure that carb level are consistent in both the new brew house as well as the force carbed kegs in the old brewhouse (as we are keeping both running)

I am new the head brewer position and am just starting out in the commercial brewing world. I have pretty good knowlegde on brewing but I sadly do not when it comes to carbonation vols and testing.

Sugestions?

[WWSean]

Just giving this a bump.

I am thinking of getting this beer carb tester. does anyone have any experience with it? Pros and cons?

http://www.taprite.com/2701-bct-2701-bct

[TGTimm]

I just spoke to the nice folks at http://www.zahmnagel.com/ about this. We have a Zahm 1000 series tester for testing beer from fermenters/brights, a Zahm Piercing device for bottles, but nothing for kegs. According to the tech I spoke to, Zahm has pretty much given up on this, as the P/T method doesn't produce consistent measurements from kegs due to the pressure drop when drawing a sample.

But it occurred to me that the keg is a pressure vessel--if you know the temperature of the keg and it has sat at that temp long enough for the head pressure to reach equilibrium, all you need to do is measure the pressure in the keg and consult your P/T chart--the Zahm tech said this would be the most accurate way to go--and cheap.

Get a coupler for your keg. Remove the check-valve on the gas in side. Cap the beer out side. Fit a calibrated pressure gauge to the gas in side. Fit the coupler to the keg, put the handle down, read the pressure, look up the temp and pressure on your P/T chart--Bob's yer uncle.

Oh, yeah--that Taprite job is a cheap hunk o' plastic. It'll probably do what it needs to (not likely too accurately), until the first time it's dropped--then it's a hand-grenade. Getting accurate measurements from a P/T device depends on accurate, calibrated thermometers and pressure gauges--these cost money.

[WWSean]

Wow thanks! That's seems like an easy solution to my problem. I will try this out.

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[gbrower]

I second that the taprite is very junky. There are multiple points of failure but the big ones are the plastic body and the pressure gauge.

[Dough In]

Don't need btites

I always shut my fermenter when I am 1-2 plato from FG.
I have carbstone in all of my fermenter which are also called UNI tanks meaning they are dual purpose tanks.
When I cold crash the PSI lands right about 12-13/PSI.
Perfect natural carb. Then I keg at the same PSI. Never had an issue and don't need a zahm.
I will however test if canning or bottling. Then I always go about 1 PSI higher.

[TGTimm]

Wow thanks! That's seems like an easy solution to my problem. I will try this out.

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The one difficulty would be getting an accurate temp on the keg. A calibrated thermometer in a gallon jug of water, left overnight on the keg, should be at the same temperature as the keg. A bare thermo will just give whatever the temp of the passing air is at the time.

[WWSean]

I always shut my fermenter when I am 1-2 plato from FG.
I have carbstone in all of my fermenter which are also called UNI tanks meaning they are dual purpose tanks.
When I cold crash the PSI lands right about 12-13/PSI.
Perfect natural carb. Then I keg at the same PSI. Never had an issue and don't need a zahm.
I will however test if canning or bottling. Then I always go about 1 PSI higher.

Thanks for the reply but my issue is carb volumn in kegs. anything that come from our unitanks/BBT are fine as we can set that. it is when force carbing at our current small brew house that we are trying to find consistency. not that we have any problem atm but just trying to produce similar products from 2 locations.

[GlacierBrewing]

When I've needed a CO2 reading from kegged beer, I setup a sanke coupler rig on the keg with low gas pressure going into the keg and the "beer out" line on the coupler terminates at a "pancake" tri-clamp fitting (http://www.gwkent.com/beer-nut.html). I then can connect my sample port to it and then my Zahm & Nagel CO2 tester. I've found that the keg pressure needs to be kept constant, around 13-16psi. It has been my experience that this gives me consistent readings of the CO2 volumes in that keg.

Prost!
Dave

[Ted Briggs]

Ive thought this might give a ball park. Or use it to hookup your Zahmm.

https://www.perlick.com/store/webcatalog2.php?catno=1&sectno=3&grpno=1

Anyone use this test tap?

[TGTimm]

Ive thought this might give a ball park. Or use it to hookup your Zahmm.

https://www.perlick.com/store/webcatalog2.php?catno=1&sectno=3&grpno=1

Anyone use this test tap?

That's almost exactly what I was thinking of... but what coupler is that? Sanke D?