I have frequently admitted to having a lack of patience when it comes to kegging my beer and getting it into my glass. It does seem silly that I would be willing to wait up to two weeks in primary and sometimes a couple of months in secondary, but as soon as it is kegged I have to have a pint as soon as possible.

I have outlined my usual process of force carbonating quickly before, but to recapitulate* after filling the keg I put the beer out Quick Disconnect on my gas tubing and bubble in CO2 at ~25-30psi through the beer out tube, rocking the keg as it goes. It usually takes me about five minutes or so of racking to get a reasonable amount of carbonation in my glass. Of course after shaking it, I do let it sit for half an hour before tapping it. Think about shaking a two liter of Coke and opening it right away…

After the keg cools down and is in my kegerator for a day or so, that carbonation ends up to be not enough, and it usually takes about a week at serving pressures before it gives me a nice head in the glass and good carbonation on the tongue.

The time versus quality thing really started to bug me, so I figured on a change of procedure. Here is what I did with steam clone. I did my usual cranking it up to 30psi and shaking it for a bit, but then I left it at 25-30psi and put it in the fridge with the gas on. Not only did I leave it in the fridge with the gas on, I did that for two and a half days!

On the drive home from my outing yesterday I was thinking it will likely be overcarbonated and pour horrible. After I vented off the pressure, reattached the proper QD’s and poured a pint sure as the day is long I got half a glass of head. SHOOT! It didn’t work.

Aaaah, as noted above, I’m not very patient. The second pint poured purrrrrfectly. There are some very good lessons in this for me. First, have a little more patience. Second, always have a second pint. Third … well ok, there are two good lessons in this.

Now I have to pull off the quantities that I’ve promised others before I drain this one!

Cheers!
Tony

*recapitulate, the long form of “recap”. Isn’t that a cool word? Recapitulate.