Force Carbonating

There are a lot of different ways to artifically carbonate your kegged beer, and I'm sure they all work well. I just want to tell you how I do it, which is somewhat unconventional but works great for me. It is simple, fast, consistent, and reliable.

Chill keg to 40F. Set CO2 regulator to 35 psi. Set a timer to 4 minutes (or use your watch). Lay the corny horizontally across your knees with the gas-in QD at the lowest point (use some insulation between corny and knees - it gets cold) . Connect the gas (with the hose looped above the keg if you don't have a check valve in the line) and start the timer. Rock the keg by swinging your knees left to right about 3-4 inches & back at a rate of about 60-80 times per minute. It is quite slow, like rocking a baby. You will hear the CO2 bubbling into the keg. When the timer goes off, shut off the gas cylinder and continue rocking. You will see the regulator pressure gauge start to drop, and it should bottom out at somewhere around 12-15 psi.

If your serving system is balanced* so that you can serve at that pressure, pour a glass to check the carbonation level. If not, bleed some pressure first. If you want higher carbonation, repeat the rocking process, estimating the amount of extra time based upon the current carb level.

I had to experiment a little, and if your temps or pressures or rock frequency varies from mine then you will have to experiment to find the optimal times for you. For me, I use 3.5 minutes for an English Ale, 4 minutes for a European lager, 4.5 minutes for an American or Belgian Ale, and 5 minutes for a Hefeweizen. I rarely have to hook back up and adjust it anymore. Also, if I've had the keg setting in the cold box for a while, I'll gently transfer it to another keg before shaking - invariably there is a little sediment left in the original keg that would have been mixed up when I carbonated it.

*balanced: if you have adjusted the length of your beer out lines to match your keg pressures, then your system is balanced.