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?

[Pilgrim]

Had a funny experience last night. Went to pour myself a Pilsner and nothing came out of the tap. Strange. The Lager tap poured perfectly. Opened the fridge and everything looked ok, checked the pressure in the tank all ok. So disconnected the liquid disconnect and disassembled the tap. Nothing untoward there. Connected everything back up, but still nothing at the tap. Then I noticed a little dew drop on the beer line and it was a drop of ice. Held the pipeline to warm it up for a few seconds and voila the beer started flowing. Pipe must have been touching the condenser and froze for a few inches. re-routed the pipe and now all sweet.

[vdog]

Help! I'm after a bit more advice please gents - I'm now all kegged up and ready to go, and put the gas on yesterday morning. Using the brewcraft pdf advice (yep, think that might have been my first mistake) I followed their instructions and set it to 32psi and left it alone. The beer I'm carbonating is an NZPA so I'm guessing around 2.5 volumes of CO2 would be about right. Just looking at some online calculators now though (KOTMF and Tasty), and they're telling me I'm way overcarbonating here - is it true, and if so what should I do about it?

How do you guys all carbonate your kegs - just hook up and pressurise, or are there some tricks I'm missing?

[jt]

I carbonate at dispensing pressure.
Usually hook up the keg to the gas and leave it there at 12 psi to carbonate and condition and try it after a week (if I have patience).
If I’m impatient, I’ll force carbonate it at 12psi and pop it in the fridge

[vdog]

If you're force carbing (I'm impatient, so that suits me) what do you have to do at 12psi? Is there shaking involved?

[Barry]

Two ways to force carb. Set it high and shake for 2 mins, or set it high and leave it sitting overnight.
I do the latter. Whack it up to 250-300kPa and leave it overnight - 24 hours. Then turn it down to serving pressure, vent keg, and start pouring.

[James P]

Ditto here, normally works okay.

[jt]

I tried setting high and got a few over-gassed results.
By setting at the pressure you want to acheive, you can't over do it - either by forcing - shaking - or just leaving it
Usually I'm gassing a keg at ambient temperature, so it's not going to accept that much gas anyway and the first pint I pour is warm and semi-flat, but it's usually extremely flavoursome

[denimglen]

It should be carbonated, or close to it, by now.

Unhook the gas, drop the pressure on the regulator to what the table tells you it should be, pull the gas-release ring at the top of the keg, plug the gas back in.

Let it equilibrate over night, and if it's not carbonated yet it will be in about a week.

[vdog]

Thanks guys, think I have it sorted. Just drinking the first pint now, and it's all good! Could probably go a little higher on carbonation but I guess it'll do that over the next day or two as it equalises to serving pressure.

I just want to confirm my understanding of how this all works now:
- Calculate what volume of CO2 you want in the beer (eg 13psi @ 6c for 2.5volumes). Then either:
- Crank it up to 35psi (ish) overnight, then disconnect, vent, connect at 13psi and start drinking, or
- Set it to 13psi and either shake (force) it or leave it for a week til it gets there by itself

Cheers!

[Barry]

Not quite.
First one bang on. Crank to 35ish psi and leave overnight, disconnect and vent. Then lower to serving pressure and drink. Over the next week it will still get to equilibrium for that pressure and temp even despite the initial charge.

Second one, the shake method, that needs to also be cranked up at 35ish. AND, importantly, you want the CO2 to go directly into the beer. That means you have to either lay the keg on it's side, or connect the gas up to the beer out post (so the gas goes down the long dip tube to the bottom of the beer). Shake for 2 minutes, quite vigorously. Then let it settle for a good hour. Then vent, connect at serving pressure and pour. Expect some fiz in the first pint.

Third one - leave it at serving pressure for about a week then try it. Thing is, if you do this method you usually sneak a pint or two to see how it's going - well I do anyway. You might as well force it and be able to drink it right away :)

[denimglen]

I like option three. But it's usually closer to two weeks for me to hit the right carb level.

I find most of the beers I brew are at there peak after about 3 weeks in the keg (after about 3 weeks fermentation and aging in primary). So I start drinking it after about 2 weeks in the keg.

It also works well because it takes me about 2 weeks to finish a keg, so I've usually got one carbonating/aging and one drinking.

[Barry]

I totally agree with that. I generally keg after at least 14 days taking into account fermentation, diacetal rest, fining and general clearing thing up. Then keg. Beer tastes best at about 2-3 weeks in the keg if it lasts that long which is a complicated factor of how much I've been able to brew lately, how many kegs I've got in the fridge and of what beers, how many family gatherings we have that month, whether or not a mate drops by for a few.

If I had the patience and discipline that Glen obviously has (impressive for such a young buck) I would live and let carbonate, but I'm perpetually way too close to the edge of running out so force carb and start drinking is my mantra. Beer is always at it's finest and clearest right before it blows dry. But how I cherish those last half a dozen pints.