---
title: Anatomy of a Perfect Carbonation Plot
url: https://fizzwizz.ca/perfect-carbonation-plot/
date: 2026-10-05T21:53:15+00:00
modified: 2026-10-05T21:53:15+00:00
lang: en_US
---

# Anatomy of a Perfect Carbonation Plot

## The plot

A 30-barrel bright tank with a 12-inch carbonation stone. The brewer starts the run in the late afternoon, and it finishes around 8:30 the next morning, ready to package. Four curves to know:

- **Red:** temperature
- **Blue:** target pressure
- **Yellow:** tank pressure, measured at the CIP arm
- **Green:** volumes set by the user

## Phase 1: cooling down

The beer went into the tank too warm, and FizzWizz won't start carbonating until the product is around **3 degrees Celsius**. So first, the tank chills.

## Phase 2: pre-scrub

Pre-scrub is a user-selectable setting, offered right after you set the start temperature. It's a good idea if you use press filtering and worry about **dissolved oxygen**. FizzWizz dissolves about 3 PSI (just over a volume) of CO2 into the product, then vents it down to 1 PSI over 20 to 30 minutes. Why? The first dilution is always the greatest: any freely available oxygen gets knocked into the headspace, then vented out the CIP arm. You don't have to do this manually. FizzWizz does it automatically.

## Phase 3: carbonation, chasing temperature

Here's the part that would ruin a manual carbonation: the temperature keeps falling, from just under 2 degrees at the start to about half a degree by morning. That's nearly a **1.5-degree drift**, and it would be a massive error if you were holding a fixed pressure by hand. FizzWizz chases the temperature and continuously adjusts the equilibrium pressure so the finished carbonation lands exactly on target.

The first few minutes of the carbonation phase move quickly. The tank picked up residual CO2 from the pre-scrub, so there's no room for the new gas and the pressure kicks out into the headspace sooner.

## The payoff

Because the brewer matched the carb stone to the tank and dialed in the flow rates, the carbonation finishes just before the crew arrives, and packaging can start at 8:30. Extremely repeatable carbonations, tank after tank.

**Want plots like this on every run?** [Contact us](/contact/).