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Hello fellow brewers.I am new to kegging beer after several years of brewing into bottles.
I have just kegged my first brew, a Coopers Irish Stout which is ok but Im a bit confused with carbonating the keg.There are several methods of carbonating a kegs on various websites, the method I used for my first one was to fill the keg from the fermenter, I then put a small amount of CO2 into the keg and burped it through the relief valve and put it in the fridge overnight, once the keg was cold I put the CO2 into the keg at about 300kpa (40psi)for several days, three or four times a day I would top up the gas and give it a good shake and watch the gas pressure drop due to shaking the brew then top up the gas back up to 40psi etc.

My brew is a bit gassy when I pour it, I have dropped the pressure down to about 100kpa(15psi) my question is will I need to bump the pressure up to 40psi again to keep the brew carbonated, will it go flat if it is left at 15psi all the time, I only have the gas turned on when pouring the beer other that that the gas is left off in case of leaks etc.

Thanks for any replies
bilgerat

No it wont go flat, what your doing is force carbing so you can get it done quicker, if you left your brew at 15 psi for a couple of weeks you would pretty much get the same result although it sounds like you may have overdone it just a little but once your beer is carbonated then just leave at pouring preasure and it will be fine!!

What can be done about an over-carbonated keg? I'm guessing letting it warm up a bit to get some CO2 to come out of solution, then burping it would be one way, but too many temperature changes are never good for a brew.

squirt in the turns wrote:What can be done about an over-carbonated keg? I'm guessing letting it warm up a bit to get some CO2 to come out of solution, then burping it would be one way, but too many temperature changes are never good for a brew.

Just leave it in the fridge and burp it every now and again, no need to let it warm up

squirt in the turns wrote:What can be done about an over-carbonated keg? I'm guessing letting it warm up a bit to get some CO2 to come out of solution, then burping it would be one way, but too many temperature changes are never good for a brew.

Adding to Tipsy's comment (and you should use a check valve to prevent beer going into your reg) I burp it down to about 5psi. I then turn off the gass at the bottle and use the fact that its overgassed to pull a beer. In between beers if the reg has risen back up to say 15psi then I burp it back down to 5psi before pulling a beer. I often pull these beers into a jug to let the head settle if it is really overgassed. When the beer's co2 level gets to where you want it, turn the gas back on at normal serving pressure.

Cheers

Hirns

Cool, thanks guys.

with all that burping going on it sounds like you all have young kids
not kegs
as oliver said i would push as much co2 into your brew then cold settle
but if it was me then again the beer would be coming out of the fridge at 1 degree be transfered to a cleaned co2 flushed vessel
then carbonated asap
bonus is you get to try your brew straight away
and dont have to worry about pressure drop
cheers speedster