Keg Head Space

Kegging w/ Corny's for the first time. Is there a desired amount of head space in the keg? AKA: how full can we have it and conversely, can we keg half empty?

I don't like to cover up the gas dip tube. I usually fill to the intersection of the top cap and the sidewalls.

You're gonna pressurize with CO2 and purge air out anyway so it doesn't really matter how little you fill it. I agree about the max fill being just below the gas in dip tube.

I recently overfilled a keg, and was pondering this. It occurs to me that since gas absorption is proportional to surface area. Hence, if your keg is filled past the point where it narrows, you are extending your carbonation time.

Does it actually make a difference? I have no idea.

My main concern with filling above the gas dip tube is that if the keg is at a higher pressure when you connect the gas it will push beer into the gas line. I have check valves in case this ever happens, but I don't want to have to clean the line regardless.

You can also suck beer into your lines if you are forcing the carbonation. There is foam on the top of the beer after you shake and if you turn the pressure down to serving psi without bleeding the keg you can suck the foam into your reg. I tend to leave about an inch below the gas tube.

I fill mine to the weld line at the top. That's well below that gas dip tube. If don't have enough beer to get the keg that full, I don't sweat it. I always purge anyway.

Fingers said:

You can also suck beer into your lines if you are forcing the carbonation. There is foam on the top of the beer after you shake and if you turn the pressure down to serving psi without bleeding the keg you can suck the foam into your reg.

Click to expand...

...but no one here has ever ACTUALLY done that...more than once...or twice...or...

Well, we successfully kegged two batches tonight. Got em in the new fridge. (I had a customer who had their fridge go out on em... top of the line amanna side by side... cost me $5.00 in parts to get it running) So now I'm sitting pretty with a mini fridge by my desk for bottles, the side by side in the garage for kegs and a regular full size for lagering. Now I just need to siphon off enough cash (under the SWMBO radar) to get the fridge set up with four taps and I'm good to go. We ended up about 3 inches down from the top. Filtered w/ both 5 & 1 micron filters.

this is worth at leased two banana's

You'll never look back,...bottling who?