Kegging

[Mike Neilson]

Looking at doing a keg set up, Is it cheaper and easyer to go with the brew craft setup or designing your own set up, and getting the bits from the likes of Craft brewer, etc?
Whats your thoughts?

[Dave]

I've got everything I need for my kegerator just need to get some beer line and can't really figure out what's best.

I'm looking at either PVC, Polyethylene or EVA. Anyone have experience/preference for any of these? Or something else.

I think the deciding factor will be do any of them leave a detectable taint.

 

[JoKing]

I just use the stock Standard John Guest hose - it's the 8mm stuff I think. It's the proper beverage line, so doesn't get any taint. At the time, I got that from Blackwood Paykels - but now I get it all from pipeline industries. There should be plenty of these types of suppliers where you are Dave, but if you can't find it give me a holler at [e-mail] and I'll hook you up with the good stuff. Even the John Guest fittings if you need them to go into your reg, taps etc.

 

I just bought a whole bunch of 10mm Nylon for the brewery, and so far so good.

 

The reason I've gone with the nylon is because it's rated to 80 degrees, so when it comes to hot caustic washes, these hoses can handle it and won't get soft in their fittings like the ordinary John Guest hose can.

 

I wouldn't go with PVC if I could avoid it (even though I know heaps of people use it) I just can't see that it's safe as it doesn't handle pressure in the same way nylon does - and it certainly doesn't handle temperature.

[Scott Dean]

Hi Matt, im looking at buying a 50L fermenter from Farra and was wondering if you are happy with it and what sort of results you get.

Scott

[Matt]

Gday Scott

Love the conical, bit more faffing around than a plastic fermenter as I pull down the butterfly valve every time to clean but having the extra confidence that everything is sanitary makes it well worthwhile. Not sure on the designs farra has these days but Id recommend getting something that you can open up to visually inspect. Some of their earlier designs only had a small port at the top so again for the confidence of knowing its squeaky clean Id recommend a setup with a decent size lid, though regardless Farras craftsmanship is excellent. Conical design is also awesome, very simply and safe to reuse yeast through multiple generations since you can drop out and harvest the centre section of the cone for very clean yeast that generally I do not bother washing. So all and all go for it I say :)

[Scott Dean]

Thanks Matt, I am looking at getting 100mm braked wheels installed on it and a temp gauge added also. How do you control the temp of yours? Would a brew belt do the job? The fermenter only comes with a 100mm opening which worries me a little.

Cheers

[Matt]

Depends what youre paying I guess, but for a piece of kit like that I think you also want to have the internal welds linnished back to sanitary spec which if it only has the 100mm RJT port on the top is pretty unlikely.

Temp control is critical so you dont want to mess around with a heat belt, just buy a fridge big enough to put the whole thing inside and use a temp controller to heat/cool. For that reason I wouldnt worry about wheels as it wont be going anywhere when full and its easy enough to manhandle when empty. Would also flag the temp gauge as adding a thermowell just provides more interior surfaces for bugs to adhere, just tape your temp controller sensor to the outside as this will be within .5C of whats going on inside the fermenter anyway.

[Nick T]

My newly kegged and carbonating beer (using 'set and forget') keeps going way over the pressure I set on the regulator. Is this a sign that I might have an infection in the beer and it is doing the 'ferment to fizzy alcoholic water' thing? (Another clue is that the beer when sampled seems to taste a bit thinner than expected, but then again I did use some fairly old malt and I did over-kopperfoc it during the boil).

[Ged]

Hey folks

 

Finishing off the kegerator and fitted a collar to the chest freezer after 12 months of thinking about it. Didn't take long and now gives me something to drill through etc. 

Buying parts for it over next few months and now looking at something like this

http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=137

to give me around 6 lines but just realised this wouldn't be controllable with regards individual pressures in each keg - is that correct?  Its basically splitting the original source ( I think )

 

So...... had a look at this as well so I can serve different styles at roughly correct pressures.

 

http://www.beveragefactory.com/draftbeer/regulator/secondary/premiu...

 

Would this simply connect using the standard (8mm crimped on) gas line to my primary regulator as I'm thinking I would need to crank up the pressure on primary to give each secondary enough grunt to deliver co2. I note there are no check valves on these secondary regs so would I also have to install a one way john guest valve on each line in case of beer entering regs or would that not happen? I have a non return valve just after main connection to primary just now.

 

Cheers for your thoughts.

Ged

[Tilt]

After a few iterations and one dead fridge I've arrived at my current definitive kegging/fridge setup. 

It was duly tested by 50 thirsty drinkers at my wife's birthday bash over the weekend. 

Four empty kegs later it stood up to the challenge admirably. 

Looking forward to keeping it stocked with many and varied beers.

[Greg Tarr]

Hey I'm working on making a kegorator and I was just wondering what people think about the taps we have available here?

[Greg Tarr]

[Pierre Malan]

Looking pretty sweet.  Four taps!  What did you get in the end?

I am looking to get a couple of taps into a fridge and go kegging - was squinting at these ... not real perlick, but forward sealing.  Does anyone have any experience?  I considered getting one, as if it is rubbish then it's only 40 bucks down the drain.

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Forward-Seal-Tap-80mm-long-...