We’ll be kegging our first batch of IPA later this week so I’ve been doing some research on how to properly carbonate kegged homebrew.
Apparently, you can do it the same way that you would a bottled beer but with about half the dextrose you would use for bottling (so about 1/3 cup). However, this is not the best way, especially if you, like me, have a kegerator set up.
From what I’ve been reading, gathering from multiple sources and many, many different approaches to this process the best means of adding carbonation to your kegged beer is to do the following:
- Clean/sanitize your keg properly.
- Blast some CO2 down into your keg, since CO2 is heavier than oxygen it will push that stuff out of your keg.
- Fill your keg with your delicious homebrew and close up.
- Run your CO2 into the liquid out port on your corny keg at around 20-30psi (this allows for a more thorough distribution of CO2 throughout the beer.
- Release the gas out of the keg (4,5 insure that any remaining oxygen is pushed out).
- Let the keg sit at room temp over night.
- Put the keg in your fridge and give it around 36psi (according to this guy from the BA forum you’ll gain about 10psi per 24 hours at 36psi and 40* temp)
- After a good 24 hours for most beers (you can use this calculator if you want to be real precise) you can bring your psi down to it’s serving pressure and begin enjoying.
That’s it. Some people like to shake their kegs others like to tap it at serving pressure and let it sit for 2 weeks. What I have posted above is a composite of the best ideas distilled into the most reasonable approach I could decipher from many sources on line. Obviously, actual experience will yield even more accurate results so I’ll post back here if their is any signicant part of this process missing or inaccurate.