I just put a batch of home brew in a keg for the first time and am aging it some. I plan to force carbonate it in about a week and a half, then try it three or four days later. What I am wondering and can't seem to find the answer to, is: At what psi should the keg be left in between serving times in the fridge and should I leave the CO2 tank connected even it it will be several days or a week or more between servings? Sorry if this has been answered before. The search engine does not bring it up. Lots online, here and elsewhere about carbonation pressure and lots of different opinions, but I can't find an answer to my questions.
there is no need to wait to force carbonate. aged or fresh, just apply the proper serving pressure and wait. temperature and the vols (that is the amount of gas in the beer) are interdependent. find a carbonation chart, choose your vols at your preferred temperature and set the psi. a word of advice, carbonate near 38. do not fight physics. its the law and all... once the beer is in the keg, once FG has been achieved, go ahead and apply CO2. this will purge oxygen (burp the keg a few times initially to evacuate oxygen). then let the beer absorb the CO2. there is no reason to delay force carbonating your finished beer. you may leave the CO2 attached. or not. makes no difference. once the beer is fully carbonated the gas is needed to replace the empty headspace when a beer is served. if the keg sits idle, the gas is idle. homebrew is no different than commercial beer in this respect. it leaves the brewery properly carbonated. sits idle. then gets attached to gas and served. your question has indeed been answered, i think you are looking at this as a problem that does not exist and therefore does not need a solution. Cheers.
I trust your local source of draft beer information is reliable. Chances are slim. Kegging is not rocket science, but there is so much bad advice out there... Feel free to ask any question you like. Cheers.
I don't understand what you mean by carbonate at 38. My carbonation calcuater is set to a default o 2.4 volumes. Did you mean 3.8? If so that seems quite high to me. PS. my local guy is the buy who loaned me the kegging system, and it has worked pretty well for him, so pretty reliable. Or at least he has been so far. I just realized you probably mean carbonate at near 38 F, right?
Yes that's what he meant. Also a nice resource if you aren't in a rush time wise to carbonate. Set it and forget it http://www.kegerators.com/carbonation-table.php
