[THC] gas is more soluble in cold liquid...

[L. A. Swihart]

mr soul wrote:

>I am of the understanding that the faster you can cool your beer the faster it will absorb CO2.  I generally hook up my CO2 to my keg as it is cooling in the fridge.  As it cools it will continually absorb gas until properly carbonated.  Of course this only works if your CO2 can be hooked up in the fridge.
>  
>Tom
>  
>

As soon as the beer is cold you can get a lot of CO2 dissolved in it in 
just a couple of hours.  More (lots lots lots more) CO2 will dissolve in 
beer when it's cold than when it's not cold.  You have to shake.  A 
lot.  And add more CO2 (you disconnect the CO2 while you shake or you'll 
shake beer up into your line, unless you have a check valve, which I 
don't.  The simple instructions are 1. get beer in keg, 2. get beer real 
cold, 3. pressurize to 30 psi 4. shake like hell, repeat 3 and 4 a few 
times.

Here is the long version of how I carbonate.  I am almost never 
hurrying, but this is really a pretty fast way. 

Starting with a cleaned, sanitized keg (ALL parts come apart for 
cleaning and sanitizing every time, poppets and rubber rings too.  Get a 
long skinny brush to do the openings and the stainless tubes too... have 
o-rings and poppets on hand for when the old ones give out or you lose 
one).  Put the clean and sanitized parts all back together and

then
1 - put in the beer.
2 - sweep out the air with CO2 and close it up
3 - pressurize it to 30 psi
4 - disconnect CO2 and shake it hard, add some more
5 - chill beer
6 - add more CO2 (30 psi), disconnect, shake (repeat step 6 until no 
more goes in when you connect the gas)

So now it's way over carbonated but it's pretty easy to let off pressure 
and get it to where you want to serve it.  I generally let it chill for 
a day before carbonating and then hit it with the CO2/shaking routine 
several times over the course of the next day.  Then the evening of that 
second day it's good to go.

Linda