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Overcarbonation from CO2 head pressure

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  • Overcarbonation from CO2 head pressure

    I've searched and searched through countless threads for my answer and some have danced around what I am looking for, but nothing completely addressed my question, so I apologize if I overlooked a thread where this is brought up.

    I'm running a small brewpub with two 15BBL unitanks and one 7BBL unitank. We used to have brite tanks, but for various reasons those were sold off in favor of a second 15BBL unitank. A small yet decent percentage of our kegs are stuck or broken in some capacity (which is a whole other issue I am attempting to resolve currently), so our bottleneck at the moment is kegging off beer with the usable kegs we have in rotation. The owner of the brewery will sometimes get pressure from our accounts, which happen to be other restaurants in our restaurant group, for kegs as they run out. I have always been told that you want to keg off the whole batch at once to reduce the chance of overcarbonating the beer left over in the tank.

    My question to you all is this: if I was to keg out a few kegs, let's say 4-6 kegs off of 15BBLs, and I left it for a few days, would it get overcarbonated? If it won't get overcarbonated (or probably won't), where is the threshold?

    Thanks in advance. This forum has been super helpful in the past and I'm sure it will be in the future.

    Shaver
    Head Brewer
    Hillcrest Brewing Company
    San Diego, CA

  • #2
    Use your Pressure/Temperature chart for CO2 to determine the equilibrium pressure for the temperature of your tank and your desired level of carbonation. After kegging, reduce the pressure to this level. You can now store the remaining beer for as long as you like, with no change in carb level.

    Realistically, it takes a long time--days--for head pressure to much influence carbonation. There just isn't that much surface area or turbulence to get the CO2 into solution. Ask anyone who has attempted to carbonate using head pressure alone. Of course, the higher the pressure, the greater the likelihood of over-carbing.
    Timm Turrentine

    Brewerywright,
    Terminal Gravity Brewing,
    Enterprise. Oregon.

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    • #3
      TGTimm is correct. We can keg, wait a day or two can, and then come back over the weekend and finish kegging off the brite. Pay attention to the head pressure and temp and use the chart.

      Also, do you have a Zahm to check carb levels?


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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      • #4
        Originally posted by TGTimm View Post
        determine the equilibrium pressure for the temperature of your tank and your desired level of carbonation. After kegging, reduce the pressure to this level.
        school me - why are you increasing the pressure on the tank prior to kegging? fill kegs faster? lose some pressure/carb due to blowoff? im assuming this is manual keg filling if that matters.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by brain medicine View Post
          school me - why are you increasing the pressure on the tank prior to kegging? fill kegs faster? lose some pressure/carb due to blowoff? im assuming this is manual keg filling if that matters.
          you do that so your co2 pressure in the tank doesn't get to low while your filling kegs.

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