I'm Curious About Kegging!!!?

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hey guys I am thinking ahead and looking at the next step would be kegging..yep!

So what's the scoop, where do I start, and please suggest the cheapest methods for starting. I found this link to Brewshop's start up kit.

http://www.brewshop.co.nz/kegging/kegging-starter-kit.html  If feeling generous maybe I could look at buying from someone here, if they were looking to upgrade their system? hint, hint.

Cheers

Daza.

[Cain Harland]

Kegging is awesome and bottling (mostly washing bottles) is a pain in the arse.

The first thing is to decide weather you want a kegerator (front loading fridge) or keezer (top loading chest freezer) and how many kegs you need to fit. I found noone I asked could measure the inside of a fridge properly so best to make a couple of cardboard circles that represent the bottom of your kegs and go view the fridge or freezer and try to fit them in. Most kegs you will find are ex coke which are slightly shorter and fatter than pepsi so measure for them.

At a minimum you probably want: (I will put sources where I got mine)

• fridge or freezer - trademe
• 2 ball lock courny kegs - here, trademe or brew shop
• 1 (or more) tap with a long enough shank to go through the door of the fridge or the wooden collar you build for the keezer
• CO2 bottle  - look for a second hand one, new cost a fortune
• CO2 regulator - brew shop
• 2 (or more) way splinter or manifold - brew shop
• 2 x gas disconnects - ali express
• 2 x liquid disconnects - ali express
• gass line - brew shop
• beer line - keg resources
• keg lube - brew shop
• hose clamps - aliexpress
• someone local who does reasonably priced CO2 refills

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

I see you mention Brewshop a few times there, so they are good place to start then, they also recommended soda stream bottles for the CO2 plus an adapter? the 19L size seem to be a good size, I think 2 will fit in my fermenter fridge.....I think I'm gonna need another fridge though, aren't I? cause that one will still be the fermenter one or is the whole fermenting process skipped when you keg? like straight from wort chilled to keg? thanks for the tips and where to look, cheers just need money and more experience now. is that a splinter or splitter? (all new lingo)

Daza.

[Cain Harland]

I'm not 100% on this but I think you end up paying a lot more for your gas with soda stream bottles. Worth figuring that out before you commit 1 way or the other. I pay $11 per kg at Gasworkz in hastings and my converted fire extinguisher holds about 2kg.

You still ferment as usual you just transfer to 1 or 2 kegs instead of lots of bottles when its done. So yes you need another fridge.

Once beer is in the keg you have the choice of force carbonating with CO2 or adding priming sugar and naturally carbonating. Then you use CO2 pressure to push the beer out the tap. There are a few faster ways to force carbonate but the easiest is just to hook it up at serving pressure and wait a couple of weeks.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

OK sweet I'll do my homework before buying any parts for the keg, pricing wise. Best option for long run. hey I was reading on internet that you can filter completely with keg then artificially carbonate which will produce a much clearer beer, is that right what type of filter are they talking about? and that is why we can't filter straight to bottle because you would lose all remaining yeast that produces the carbonating. so sediment is always going to be present, with bottling. would you buy the CO2 bottle locally or from nz sites? like Trade Me or home brew sites? Do the kegs need to be attached via a tap thru the fridge door? or is that just for show purposes? cheers mate, it's a lot to process right now and looks like something I am going to have to do but probably gradually build up all necessary gear required!!

[Kyle Richards]

Some people filter beer (to remove suspended yeast particles with a 1 um beer filter) either before the beer goes into the keg or between two kegs. Clarity vastly improves but this will NOT remove chill haze. You then force carbonate (either slow or fast, slow is much much better) over the course of a week. 

I use to filter but have now stopped doing it as my beer still needs to cold condition at LEAST 1-2 weeks (after two weeks being much better) before it tastes good and in which time the beer clears anyway. There is also debate whether filtering strips taste, I however do not have enough experience with it to comment. Many craft breweries are very anti filtering but then many arnt as well. In my opinion there are certainly no shortcuts to the conditioning phase of brewing.

Another technique  for carbonating within keg is to prime with sugar (as you would in a bottle), this is a more traditional technique ( because people didn't always have CO2 bottles). It is argued that this technique provides a more delicate CO2 bead (smaller bubbles). Moa brewing for example still do this on a commercial scale  (however if you crack a Moa beer and pour it into a glass the bead looks exactly the same as forced carbonated beer) so I dont know!

Kegging is awesome and I highly recommend it but I am not sure it saves you that much time in the end. I started kegging thinking there would be less time between grain and glass but there really isnt, there is no substitute for time. 

I brought an old 5kg fire extinguisher off trade me with regulator for $150, that was super cheap, I would start there. 

[Cain Harland]

I don't filter. Between vorlauf, koppaflock and whirlpooling to clear the wort as much as possible. then cold crashing for a week with a bit of gelatin the beer pretty clear going into the keg, then another couple of weeks carbing up (with CO2 not sugar) a little more sediment settles on the bottom, still get a little chill haze.

About the taps. You need some way to get the beer into your glass there's lots of ways to do it you could have a pluto beer gun (as much $ as the taps) or picnic tap (cheap plastic) inside the fridge. You can also get a tap attached directly to the disconnect with no beer line in between but I recon these would be a disaster because if you have enough pressure to maintain carbonation you need a few feet of beer line to slow the beer down so it doesn't blast out and foam every where (google balancing kegs). My taps are $29 USD Chinese ones, you can get cheaper but I liked the idea of self closing ones (not that the self closing works that great). The holes were easy as to cut with a $6USD Chinese step bit. So when looking at the options there was not much to be saved by going another way and the taps in the door are easier to use and generally cooler.

[Kyle Richards]

$11 kg is a good price, might look them up next time i need a fill. 

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Is the main reason to keg to avoid bottle washing and filling?

[Cain Harland]

Partly. For me it was more about keeping my beers fresh. I mostly brew styles that are best fresh. I had a few batches last summer that were real good young but aged really badly. One was great 1 week after bottling and had gone down hill by week 4. It gets real hot in my shed, same beers in my mates shed lasted way better. In the kegerator its 5 degrees all year round so aging happens a lot slower and more predictably. Also with hoppy beers the process of naturally carbonating reduces the hoppyness so I wanted to force carbonate.

Some styles of beers benefit from aging and bottle conditioning. I have kept a few crates of bottles so when I next brew an imperial stout or tripel it will be bottled and I will try not to drink it for a few months.

Every time I keg when I'm all done I think I would probably have not even filled a bottle yet and I'm pretty stoked.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

So a time saver too. I like bottles and maybe still like to fill some, that was fun but legging seems like a naturally progression for us Brewers, next I'll be interested in liquid yeast and starters........,a separate thread I think will be necessary haha. Cheers mate

[Kyle Richards]

Hi Cain, is there a reason you recommend keg resources for beer line, as opposed to brew shops keg line? I am currently using the PCV clear brew shop keg line, but have noticed most bars and breweries use the stiffer less transparent line (some kind of vinyl maybe). Cheers

[Cain Harland]

It's made of LDPE I started useing the smallest PVC one from brew shop and was having a hard time balancing the lines. Nathan saw the pic I posted and told me the line was too fat so I got the smallest I could find. The small diameter LDPE is a bitch to force over the barbs but you don't do that very often and it's much stiffer apparently PVC can leave a taste in your beer but LDPE won't.