101 Dumb Questions about Kegging

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BeerSlinger

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Hi,

I’m sorry I have to post this but I have no idea how to Keg. I’ve spoken to you guys about my ideas and what I wanted to do so everything has been validated. So it’s been awhile and now my equipment has finally come TODAY!!!

So, now that I told the lady that owned the store that I wanted to do forced carbonation of Soda and be able to have Kegged beer. She set me up with a $249 (that’s including shipping and some extra botteling stuff) and now I have received the package; so I can honetly say that I have no clue what I’m doing. But to me that’s ok because I’ve never done this before.

Considering everything, I want to start with a really dumb set of questions. Since all I have is a prepaid cell phone, could someone tell me in Michigan, where do I get CO2? Do I go to someone that handles propane or somewhere else?

Second question, is over my tank:

Tank.jpg


Or more specifically, the regulator:

Regulator.jpg


How do I use it? I figured that you regulated the pressure by the main valve on the top of the tank. But there is a screw with a bolt on a regulator?

Also, how much gas do you throw one or two tanks for soda and beer?
 
BeerSlinger said:
Hi,

I’m sorry I have to post this but I have no idea how to Keg. I’ve spoken to you guys about my ideas and what I wanted to do so everything has been validated. So it’s been awhile and now my equipment has finally come TODAY!!!

So, now that I told the lady that owned the store that I wanted to do forced carbonation of Soda and be able to have Kegged beer. She set me up with a $249 (that’s including shipping and some extra botteling stuff) and now I have received the package; so I can honetly say that I have no clue what I’m doing. But to me that’s ok because I’ve never done this before.

Considering everything, I want to start with a really dumb set of questions. Since all I have is a prepaid cell phone, could someone tell me in Michigan, where do I get CO2? Do I go to someone that handles propane or somewhere else?

Second question, is over my tank:

Tank.jpg


Or more specifically, the regulator:

Regulator.jpg


How do I use it? I figured that you regulated the pressure by the main valve on the top of the tank. But there is a screw with a bolt on a regulator?

Also, how much gas do you throw one or two tanks for soda and beer?
You adjust the pressure by using the screw on the regulator, not the valve on the tank.

Can't help you as to where to buy your gas. I live in VA.
 
I don't think you can do what you want to do without a secondary regulator. You're going to want drastically different PSI on those. For all beer or all pop - no big deal, but one of each is a problem.

As far as the regulator and adjusting it, just use a screwdriver. You open the top of the bottle to open the tank and ajdust it to the pressure you want
 
You'll definitely want another tank and regulator so you can have one each dedicated to beer and soda.

You'll want to set the pressure to 12-14 psi for your beer dispensing. If you're planning on force carbonating beer, you can set 20-30 psi on a COLD keg and shake the hell out of it a couple of times a day for 2 or 3 days.

The dispensing pressure for soda varies greatly with your dispensing equipment, so I won't speculate. I use a system like this guy describes to carbonate water/soft drinks in 1 or 2 liter bottles. I set 60 psi and chill the liquid to almost freezing before shaking the bottle REALLY hard for a minute or so.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
You'll definitely want another tank and regulator so you can have one each dedicated to beer and soda.

You'll want to set the pressure to 12-14 psi for your beer dispensing. If you're planning on force carbonating beer, you can set 20-30 psi on a COLD keg and shake the hell out of it a couple of times a day for 2 or 3 days.

The dispensing pressure for soda varies greatly with your dispensing equipment, so I won't speculate. I use a system like this guy describes to carbonate water/soft drinks in 1 or 2 liter bottles. I set 60 psi and chill the liquid to almost freezing before shaking the bottle REALLY hard for a minute or so.

Ok, let me go into a little greater detail, is a:

# 1 Five lb. CO2 Tank
# 1 Single Gauge Regulator
# 1 Two Keg Gas Splitter
# 2 Ball Lock Gas Connects
# 2 Used ball Lock Kegs
# 2 ball Liquid Connects
# 2 Dispensing Lines with faucets
# 1 You-Make-Kit Keg Cleaner
# 1 Easy Clean no rinse cleanser
# Connections are 1/4"

On top of that I got a thing to suck out the air out of a bottle so I could bottle and a cap that goes on a two liter for forced carbonation.

Also, I have bought:

Look no further. We've included everything that you desire in our Ultimate Beer Brewing Kit. Treat yourself or a friend!
Simple to follow Beermaking kit comes complete with instructions, ingredients, and an easy to follow recipe which will teach you the fundamentals of Homebrewing. An excellent book will also guide you through the basic process as well as many variations of styles and recipes, for your pleasure.

I'm primarily doing this for pop, Personally, I love bottled beer the best and I order it as often as i can afford it. The most that I would do is only a couple times a year for Beer on special occasions; otherwise, I could see myself using the kegs to store during fermentation or aging.

So, with that in mind, what in the heck is the second gadge for and what does it measure; and more so, why would I ever need a second gadge in this situation?
 
rdwj said:
I don't think you can do what you want to do without a secondary regulator. You're going to want drastically different PSI on those. For all beer or all pop - no big deal, but one of each is a problem.

As far as the regulator and adjusting it, just use a screwdriver. You open the top of the bottle to open the tank and adjust it to the pressure you want

That’s what I suspected, but how do you calibrate....open the top valve until you get the desired PSI and then adjust the screw accordingly and then lock down the bolt?

I would only suspect this because it seems to me that this gauge is only to measure and to give a matter of convenience to the user so that they don’t have to be careful when they throw open the primary valve on the tank.

That’s why I’m really concerned about the logic of a secondary gauge; especially when I don’t know what the gauge does in the first place.

But I can see your logic on having two tanks but I don’t think that it is necessary because it would happen so seldom.
 
BeerSlinger said:
So, with that in mind, what in the heck is the second gadge for and what does it measure; and more so, why would I ever need a second gadge in this situation?

You need a secondary regulator so that you can keep 2 different pressures. For beer, you want 5-12 psi, for soda, you want more than that. I don't do any soda and I'm not sure if I ever will, but even for beer, many times you want different pressures for different styles.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
You'll definitely want another tank and regulator so you can have one each dedicated to beer and soda.

You'll want to set the pressure to 12-14 psi for your beer dispensing. If you're planning on force carbonating beer, you can set 20-30 psi on a COLD keg and shake the hell out of it a couple of times a day for 2 or 3 days.

The dispensing pressure for soda varies greatly with your dispensing equipment, so I won't speculate. I use a system like this guy describes to carbonate water/soft drinks in 1 or 2 liter bottles. I set 60 psi and chill the liquid to almost freezing before shaking the bottle REALLY hard for a minute or so.

Good deal, thanks........I think forced carb on pop is 30 PSI max as well......

I think that's a confirm unless someone else disagrees....
 
BeerSlinger said:
That’s what I suspected, but how do you calibrate....open the top valve until you get the desired PSI and then adjust the screw accordingly and then lock down the bolt?

I would only suspect this because it seems to me that this gauge is only to measure and to give a matter of convenience to the user so that they don’t have to be careful when they throw open the primary valve on the tank.

That’s why I’m really concerned about the logic of a secondary gauge; especially when I don’t know what the gauge does in the first place.

But I can see your logic on having two tanks but I don’t think that it is necessary because it would happen so seldom.

Well, I keep the regulator closed, then gradually adjust up to what I want - you've got the process right

The secondary will let you regulate down from whatever pressure you have from your first regulator. So, if you have the primary at 30, you can set the second one at anything less than 30.
 
I don't plan on kegging for a while but I have looked into what I will need. If you want CO2, the best place to find it is find a local welding supply house. My local guy also fills my propane tanks and he's going to let me have a CO2 bottle and I just pay for the refills (actually an exchange) but since you already own the bottle, I'm sure you can just get them to fill it for you. The down side is that your system will be disconnected the whole time you are waiting for the bottle to be filled unless you have a 2nd bottle.
 
Hopfan said:
I don't plan on kegging for a while but I have looked into what I will need. If you want CO2, the best place to find it is find a local welding supply house. My local guy also fills my propane tanks and he's going to let me have a CO2 bottle and I just pay for the refills (actually an exchange) but since you already own the bottle, I'm sure you can just get them to fill it for you. The down side is that your system will be disconnected the whole time you are waiting for the bottle to be filled unless you have a 2nd bottle.

I would guess this very close to the truth......I forgot that CO2 is mixed with propane for welding........

YES, THAT'S IT, THAT'S IT.....damned getting old......I forgot all about that. That's why I thought of a propane place because half way accrost town, there is a welding supplier and until a few years ago they dealt with the public and sold propane........

Its like the dots comming together.......
 
rdwj said:
You need a secondary regulator so that you can keep 2 different pressures. For beer, you want 5-12 psi, for soda, you want more than that. I don't do any soda and I'm not sure if I ever will, but even for beer, many times you want different pressures for different styles.

Ok........let me put it differently.........

I got the Kegging to have the extra storage space......I would only tap soda or beer twice a year. If there was a church of the brown bottle, I would be its head priest. I will still be a bottler........I undestand the second pressure gauage, but I still don't think its nessicary.......

I just want to have the option of offering some "Oh be Joyfull" to the crowd if they want it (sorry about the civil war reference).
 
If you will only be doing a keg of ale OR a keg of soda, you can just adjust the regulator while you are carbonating. 25-30 psi is good for soda. In both cases, you will need to leave the CO2 connected while dispensing.

I have my kegger's primary regulator at 25 psi and the soda is directly connected, the secondaries are both at 8 psi for ale. I have two, because sometimes I'll have a cider that requires 12-15 psi.

I do suspect that once you've done a few kegs, you'll be shopping for a kegger. It's so much easier than bottling.
 
for co2.. i guess try a welding shop or even a gun store/ paintball store.. they both should have co2 on hand...
 
I have my kegerator set up just like david 42. You can see in the photo below that I have a Wye connector on my primary regulator, which is set to 28 psi. One side goes to my rootbeer, which is carb'd and served at 28 psi through 20' of 3/16" ID beverage tubing. The other side of the Wye on the primary regulator supplies the input on my dual secondary regulator. They are set to beer pressures, depending on what I am serving. I also put a Wye on one of the secondary outputs so that I have a CO2 supply available for my BeerGun.

Oh, BTW, you can also look for any fire extinguisher suppliers in your area as a potential source for filling your CO2 tanks.

John

DSC02172.jpg
 
aekdbbop said:
for co2.. i guess try a welding shop or even a gun store/ paintball store.. they both should have co2 on hand...

I found it, there is a gas distributor in the area. I tried a hardware retailer but they didn't sell just pure CO2, they have a 80-20 mix with argon......

I think when I do go get it charged, I'm going to see if they deliver.....it would be nice to have 50 or 100 pounds of gas so you only had to do it once in awhile......
 
johnsma22 said:
I have my kegerator set up just like david 42. You can see in the photo below that I have a Wye connector on my primary regulator, which is set to 28 psi. One side goes to my rootbeer, which is carb'd and served at 28 psi through 20' of 3/16" ID beverage tubing. The other side of the Wye on the primary regulator supplies the input on my dual secondary regulator. They are set to beer pressures, depending on what I am serving. I also put a Wye on one of the secondary outputs so that I have a CO2 supply available for my BeerGun.

Oh, BTW, you can also look for any fire extinguisher suppliers in your area as a potential source for filling your CO2 tanks.

John

DSC02172.jpg

Actually, that's a good looken' rig....a bit more sophisticated then I would like to have but it still looks like a good setup.

If anything, I'm thinking about getting more ball kegz in the long run for both adging and fermentation because they sure as heck take up a lot less space....
 
Otherwise guys, I think I've gotten things pretty much figured out with the exception of one small detail.

When I got the setup, the woman I was talking to “swore up and down,” saying that I would need a "Counter Pressure Bottle Filler."

What I originally planed to do was fill X amount of tanks with Soda and X amount with properly aged beer and whenever we got low I was going to pull the valve and take off the gas from natural brew and from forced carbonation. Then I was going to use the auto siphon to drain the tanks that came from my kit and then cap the suckers and then throw them into the fridge.

Well, I just agreed with the woman and bought the bottle filler and later I asked myself "Why in the hell did I buy this?" because if you use it, your taking the contents from the keg but your exposing the bottle to air just long enough to throw a cap on. So what's the difference between using the siphon or the bottle filler? Also, another thing that burns my butt is that she sold it to me but is nothing but bare hoses connected to it. There are no fittings or clamps to make it so that it can be used.

The second question I have is that I’m a little confused on a small detail. I have a set of Molson screw top bottles that I sacrificed to empty. I of course picked Molson because they are a foreign beer (Canada) and since I live in Michigan, it’s a reasonably priced beer. Well after reading the beginners second on the Complete Guide to home brewing, he said when bottling to boil the caps.

I tried to think of a reason for this and the only thing I could think of was to heat the cap so that the seal inside would secure tightly, but in the Sam Adams video that I saw, he didn’t boil the caps at all. Does this make a difference?
 
BeerSlinger said:
So what's the difference between using the siphon or the bottle filler?

I don't own one, but I've read about them, so someone correct me if I'm wrong. Most counter-pressure bottle fillers actually pressurize the bottle with CO2 first. Then you turn a valve and it fills the bottle with beer from the keg. This accomplishes two things: 1) Filling a pressurized bottle prevents foaming of the beer as you fill it, and 2) the beer is never exposed to the air/oxygen.

BeerSlinger said:
...he said when bottling to boil the caps. Does this make a difference?

It's intended to sanitize them. So you can either boil them or soak in sanitizer. Also I wouldn't recommend using screw-top bottles. I've heard that they don't seal properly when using a capper.

SP
 
ESPY said:
I don't own one, but I've read about them, so someone correct me if I'm wrong. Most counter-pressure bottle fillers actually pressurize the bottle with CO2 first. Then you turn a valve and it fills the bottle with beer from the keg. This accomplishes two things: 1) Filling a pressurized bottle prevents foaming of the beer as you fill it, and 2) the beer is never exposed to the air/oxygen.



It's intended to sanitize them. So you can either boil them or soak in sanitizer. Also I wouldn't recommend using screw-top bottles. I've heard that they don't seal properly when using a capper.

SP
Two points:

1. I believe that's the very definition of a counter pressure filler, what I was trying argue is that the bottle is exposed to oxygen when you lift the filler out. So, what I really wanted to know was what is the difference from the amount of oxygen from lifting the filler out as opposed to just using a bottle filler? It seems to me more or less a question of ratio, if you use the counter pressure filler you will have less oxygen then with a bottle filler you would have more but once it’s sealed, isn’t this more or less a question of academics?
2. Actually, I got my information about bottles on this very sight from many users and here is the summary of what I have found:

American screw cap bottles = Unusable because they crack and break because the glass is too thin in the neck.

American Import bottles = Good to use but you have to use the correct cap capper.

There was a lot of mention that the caps didn’t seal on the bottles with the people that had gone out and bought more expensive cappers. For the people that used the universal capper, they claimed that most of the time that they got a seal. I found all of this when I was trying to figure out how to get the best seal and to see if caps can be reused.

Now your point on sanitation is duly noted, and actually, I didn’t think about that but is the heat helpful to the process at all?
 
BeerSlinger said:
what I was trying argue is that the bottle is exposed to oxygen when you lift the filler out. So, what I really wanted to know was what is the difference from the amount of oxygen from lifting the filler out as opposed to just using a bottle filler?

Oh, I didn't realize you wanted to argue :p .

I wouldn't expect any difference in the amount of air exposure from the removal of a CP filler vs. a normal filler. The size of the tubing is similar so as you remove the tube, it will be displaced by about the same amount of air. In other words, as long as you end up with the same amount of headspace, the amount of air will be the same.

The benefit of the CP filler only comes during the actual fill.


Can't speak to the benefit of heated bottle caps...I've never done it. But then again, I've never had seal problems without it.

SP
 
ESPY said:
Oh, I didn't realize you wanted to argue :p .

I wouldn't expect any difference in the amount of air exposure from the removal of a CP filler vs. a normal filler. The size of the tubing is similar so as you remove the tube, it will be displaced by about the same amount of air. In other words, as long as you end up with the same amount of headspace, the amount of air will be the same.

The benefit of the CP filler only comes during the actual fill.


Can't speak to the benefit of heated bottle caps...I've never done it. But then again, I've never had seal problems without it.

SP
No, not really here to argue.......I just meant point & counter point.......;)

Ok, that's what I thought. I didn't figure there would be much difference. I'm just out to get a fine product into my fridge.........that's the bottom line.........

:drunk:

I'm glad to know that you haven't had any problems, I was interjecting that the heat might help because I remember my family canning when I was really young and I didn't know if it was the same principle.

But if it works after juts plain sanitation……I’ll go for that…..
 
Don't overlook the fact that the CP filler will still result in less foaming and overall less exposure to air as you fill the bottle. If you've got one, I'd go ahead and use it.
 
Bump from the past. Seemed like the perfect place to ask my question. How would these guys work for secondary regulators to in order to have different carbonation levels? Looks like the posts would be the right size for standard MFL fittings on ball lock connectors.
 
Those things are crap. They might work, but the results will be unpredictable at best. Regulators like that are particularly bad at maintaining a consistent low pressure.
 
That was quick Yuri. I kind of thought that, just because they were so damned cheap (currenly $3.99 in the paper catalog I got today). Any recommendations on the lowest cost regulators that will work?
 
I was just doing some searching for you, and I haven't come up with an inexpensive solution. The cheapest so far is about $45. I swear I saw them cheaper somewhere.
 
Thanks Yuri. Not something I need right away anyway. I'd rather pay 45 bucks each for a couple of good ones, then end up with some useless cr@p. The price alone said "too good to be true".
 
Just to point out a few things. When you see two gauges on a regulator, one tells the pressure in the bottle, and the other shows the pressure going out to the kegs. What you have is a single gauge that just tells you the pressure out. Most people use something like these to have multiple lines at different pressure.
http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/regulators-cid-792.html
You can force pressurize the soda, get it at the CO2 concentration you need and then disconnect, lower the pressure and hook up the beer. Just realize the soda will start to go flat as you pull from it until you recharge it.
Leaving both connected at 30psi will turn your beer into foam baths within a couple of days.
 
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