Hello!
I own a brewpub about an hour from Austin, TX and we have decided to add a nitro tap to our current lineup. A customer of ours lent me his stand alone single tap kegerator and we converted it over with a nitro tap, regulator, and 75/25 mix of nitrogen and c02. I was really happy last week about it. I’m less happy this week since it just pours straight foam.
I keep reading about carbonating to 1.2 to 1.5 volumes of c02 and then packaging and pushing w/ 30 psi of nitro c02 mix. This is all great on paper but doesn’t make sense to me in practical application. This seems like an extraordinarily low amount of c02 and one that I don’t frankly know how to achieve?
My stab at it is as follows. I brewed up a stout that had a standard happy fermentation then spunded once things appeared near terminal. PSI read ~4 on gauge after several days. I relieved some head pressure and it stabilized after a few more days around ~2 psi. I crashed then packaged into 1/2 BBL kegs. The kegs sat for about a week at 30psi on beer gas and today I decided to nut up and try to pour it. Foam city. Now at 2 psi respectively at 38° this would land me 1.6 volumes (really close to target). I’m not sure how to get my volumes much lower to the desirable 1.2 area?
It almost seems that I won’t want to add any extra c02 and package the beer nearly flat?
Also beer line length comes to mind. It is 5’ now. Should it be 10’+ or is there some formula I should be aware of?
I am currently bleeding what little c02 is in the kegs off and will try again in a day or two. Does anyone have any advice or any SOP’s they’d care to share?
Thanks in advance!
Patrick
I own a brewpub about an hour from Austin, TX and we have decided to add a nitro tap to our current lineup. A customer of ours lent me his stand alone single tap kegerator and we converted it over with a nitro tap, regulator, and 75/25 mix of nitrogen and c02. I was really happy last week about it. I’m less happy this week since it just pours straight foam.
I keep reading about carbonating to 1.2 to 1.5 volumes of c02 and then packaging and pushing w/ 30 psi of nitro c02 mix. This is all great on paper but doesn’t make sense to me in practical application. This seems like an extraordinarily low amount of c02 and one that I don’t frankly know how to achieve?
My stab at it is as follows. I brewed up a stout that had a standard happy fermentation then spunded once things appeared near terminal. PSI read ~4 on gauge after several days. I relieved some head pressure and it stabilized after a few more days around ~2 psi. I crashed then packaged into 1/2 BBL kegs. The kegs sat for about a week at 30psi on beer gas and today I decided to nut up and try to pour it. Foam city. Now at 2 psi respectively at 38° this would land me 1.6 volumes (really close to target). I’m not sure how to get my volumes much lower to the desirable 1.2 area?
It almost seems that I won’t want to add any extra c02 and package the beer nearly flat?
Also beer line length comes to mind. It is 5’ now. Should it be 10’+ or is there some formula I should be aware of?
I am currently bleeding what little c02 is in the kegs off and will try again in a day or two. Does anyone have any advice or any SOP’s they’d care to share?
Thanks in advance!
Patrick