Hot answers tagged keg
15
Well you carbonate the beer in the keg the same way as if you were going to serve from the keg. There is no carbonation procedure on the way into the bottle.
To get carbonated beer into the bottles however, the cheapest way to do it is to jam some 3/8ths inch tubing onto the end of your picnic tap. Using about an 12 inch piece of tubing you can put the ...
11
There are two parts - carbonation, and getting it in the bottles.
For carbonation, there are various methods, but I use the set-it-and-forget-it method. Beer goes in keg, keg goes in fridge, CO2 gas gets put on keg. Just set the pressure to the amount of CO2 you want in solution - "volumes" of CO2 - based on the style of beer and a handy temperature / ...
9
First, go to your living room. Trust me....
Flip over your easy chair and shake it all around. Trust me...
Flip over your couch. Don't eat the crusty old cheetos that fall out. Trust me, I am not insane.
Gather up the loose change.
Unlatch the lid, the keg pressure will keep the lid closed. The wedge a penny under each foot of the lid latch, between ...
9
I think I would replace all of the seals and soak the kegs in hot Oxyclean Free or PBW for a few days. Maybe rinse and refill with that a couple of times. Then I'd just use them with strong flavored beers, or beers that would go well with the root-beer flavor for a couple of batches. If you don't notice any off-flavors, move to more subtle brews. If ...
9
Is your IPA in the bottles any good? Is the carbonation OK? If so, then do not do this, or you risk ruining the beer.
Moving the beer from bottles to a keg introduces a great deal of oxygen into the beer, which will dramatically shorten the shelf life of the brew and possibly introduce off flavors pretty quickly.
Having said that, I actually did this ...
8
If the beer is being kept cool and you are using CO2 to push (which I assume you are) then it can last for months. I think the longest I've ever had a Corny keg last is three months, but that was finishing it, not spoilage. Kept refrigerated, sealed and under CO2, it should last longer than it takes you to drink it.
The one thing you may want to keep ...
7
As you drink the keg, you're replacing the beer in the keg with CO2. The CO2 isn't going to stale your beer. As long as you are keeping the pressure in the keg high enough to ensure that the carbonation doesn't dissipate into the keg's head space, the beer should stay tasty for quite a long time.
Unlike kegerators, hand-pump kegs replace the beer with air, ...
7
I always thought standard quarter barrels were ponies. And according to Micromatic a Pony Keg IS a standard quarter barrel. The tall quarters are called "slim quarters".
Here is a link: Micromatic Chart
7
I will sanitize a mesh bag, put the whole hops in the bag, roll it up and shove it up near the top of the keg, between the dip tube and the keg wall. When you drink about a gallon of your beer, the hops will be suspended above the beer preventing over-exposure. I've done this at least a dozen times with great results.
7
You can get away with juggling the CO2 between the kegs. But it quickly becomes a pain. (I did it for a short time before building a keezer.)
If the carb/dispense pressure is going to be the same for most of your kegs, then you just need a way to split the CO2 from your regulator to multiple lines. You can use a Wye, or better, a manifold.
If you see ...
7
CO2 is less readily absorbed by warm liquids. Therefore, CO2 in solution comes out of solution when you warm the beer.
Whenever it works for you. The warmer the beer is stored though, the sooner you should try to cool it back down. Warmer storage promotes faster aging. For me, the point where I want to start cooling it down again starts at about 80F.
...
6
Too bad this one is already answered because this answer is "the ticket". But hopefully it will be upvoted when you see the picture:
Lay the keg on it's side and hook a wrench on one of the tabs. When you rotate the wrench, it pushes on the ball and the CO2 escapes. Easy, no fuss, no muss.
Or maybe you'll down vote it for such crappy art work :(
6
Even if you turn the CO2 down, there may still be pressure in the headspace of the keg. Flip the regulator off on the CO2 and pull on the pressure release valve on top of the keg. A lot of hissing will ensue as the CO2 races out. You might as well let it depressurize completely as CO2 is cheap. On a side note, don't breathe directly from this stream of ...
5
There is a thing called a SureScreen that can slip over the dip tube of the keg so you can dry hop in the keg. Here's the description from Northern Brewer:
"The SureScreen is a welded stainless steel screen that slips onto your racking cane or keg dip tube and filters out fruit or dry hops from the fermenter or whole hops and trub from the kettle. Also ...
5
At beer pressures, a keg cannot explode. It's designed to take much more pressure - rated to around 120-130 psi. Even at failure, the seals will fail rather than the chamber itself. Failing at standard beer pressures will be as a leak (pinhole or crack).
Which isn't to say they can't explode. It's a sealed pressurized vessel - so it could explode or ...
4
Replacing the seals is usually a good idea. Seal Kits are inexpensive. A good how-to on replacing seals is helpful.
The one tricky bit about o-rings is that certain types work best with certain kegs. This is especially true of the o-rings that sit between the dip tubes and the in/out ports. With the right o-rings, you really don't have to apply that much ...
4
Man your question is the answer. You described it exactly how I would do it. I have done it this way in the past with homebrew beer and it works fine. I would suggest two mods to your process.
Don't bother with the bottling wand and its a source of turbulance that will help generate more foam. Just go with a straight shot of tubing from the tap to the ...
4
As long as you aren't using air purged cask type "kegs" you'll be fine.
Disconnecting a keg from the hook up seals the keg from the outside air, and contains the pressure already applied.
Assuming you're using the proper pressure to dispense, the beer's carbonation level will remain the same.
If the beer is unfiltered, or has been naturally carbonated, ...
4
No, it makes no difference - the CO2 is already liquid, and the difference between fridge and room temperature doesn't make any significant difference.
When the CO2 comes out of the tank and converts to gas, it becomes much colder - again, significantly more colder than the difference between fridge and room temp. So again, no real difference.
Where is ...
3
You might consider the "Tap-A-Draft" system, which includes 6 liter PET bottles. These are the same thing that "Miller Light Home Draft" and "Coors Light Home Draft" uses. They are so similar as to be identical in most ways. The TAD is made for re-use, whereas the MHD say 'do not recycle or reuse', but that's just the lawyers talking, I suppose.
I ...
3
Ball lock tend to be the most available around my parts in MA. And like you said parts are easier to come by for these too.
As long as you keep the fittings in good working order (i.e. clean them once in a while), they go on and off fairly easily.
The only issue will ball locking posts is that its sometimes difficult to remember which on is the out and ...
3
You may be better off using corny kegs as a secondary fermenter. (If you transfer.) I use them as brite tanks, clarifying my beer a week before serving.
There is no risk of krausen explosion
You can naturally carbonate
You can transfer to the serving keg under pressure
No worry of clogging your dip tube
Don't need to trim the dip tube. Most stories I hear ...
3
For those using pellet hops, the stainless steel mesh balls usually used for steeping tea are an option. I've used ones I bought from Northern Brewer on several batches and each one can hold up to about an ounce, though I try to go lighter to make sure liquid can flow through and around the hops. I typically just toss the SS balls in there and leave them ...
3
The problem may not be too much pressure in the keg as much as serving lines that are too short. You want the net pressure at the tap to be pretty close to zero. To do that you need to figure in the resistance of the beer lines. Generally it's 22-3 psi/ft. So, if the beer is set at 12 psi. you need 4-6 feet of line to drop the pressure at the tap. Once ...
3
I believe a more common solution rather than unhooking whichever keg you are currently dispensing is to purchase two pressure regulators. This way, you can set one up to your carbing pressure, and another one up to your dispensing pressure. Finally, you would connect each respective regulator up to a manifold that would allow you to pressurize X numbers of ...
3
The ideal keg size for a 23l batch is 23l or as close as you can get above that.
You can use a larger capacity keg with no problems, but you will end up using more CO2, since you have to pressurize a larger volume.
Using smaller kegs is also possible, but a bit of a pain since you have twice the work to do cleaning, sanitizing and filling, and again, the ...
3
You simply need to stop the flow out of that end of the coupler. Pretty much anything you dream up that will connect with 7/8" 14 thread will work. If you have a local fitting place, ask for a cap nut, or acorn nut with that threading and you will be good to go. A search on eBay for "7/8 14 nut" had a few that fit the bill for under $5.
A note of safety: ...
3
It's actually kind of difficult to use those kegs for serving, which is why you'll generally see homebrewers using 5 gal. keg for serving and reworking the 1/2 bbl. kegs into kettles. To use the to serve, you need to remove the ring and spear, clean them, and then fill them. You need to get the appropriate fittings for gas and serving. You might want to ...
3
K-meta alone will not. You need the one-two punch of Potassium Sorbate (to prevent the yeast from reproducing) and Potassium metabisulfite (to kill existing cells). Note that this will take a bit of time, so you should expect to see a bit more of a gravity drop in the mean time. Using cold to slow yeast growth at the same time is advised.
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