Corney Kegging Commerical Beer

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John Beere

Deep Six Brewing Co.
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I searched for this but couldn't come up with anything...

So I've recently finished my Kegerator (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=19596) but I don't have any beer ready to go and its going to be a few months before I can really start brewing again.

My idea is to call the liquor store and have them order me two kegs of beer (still debating on what to get) and then transfer each keg into three cornies, pressurize, put one of each in the kegerator and store the rest in my walk-in cooler.

Anyone else ever done this? Bad idea? Any tips on how to transfer the beer?
 
See if they can order you corny kegs of beer. I know that some craft brewers sell their beers in a 5 gallon size. Might be worth a shot. I think transferring should work just fine, provided you keep it a closed system. (I have no experience here, of course.)
 
Thanks for the replies. I don't have anything for a commercial keg - only ball lock cornies. This seems like a decent interm solution but I don't know how best to transfer the beer as I'd like to do it in a way to keep as much carbonation as possible...
 
I believe you are just going to have to build yourself a transfer rig with a cornie liquid tap on one side and a onventional keg/sanke tap on the other end. Set up the sanke side as if you are going to tap a keg, with CO2 and all. Then attach the liquid line to the cornie. I would pressurize the cornie and then bleed off the pressure, just like counter pressure filling a bottle. Remember, it is just a temporary set-up until; what time as you have the good stuff on line.
 
You'll need a coupler for the keg.
If you pre pressurise the corny to match the keg when you hook up and vent the corny and keep gas on the keg.

Would that work?
 
When I run out of my homebrew I just go get a sixth barrel ( 5 gallon )form the store until mine is ready. You would need a sanke tap, either way
 
Sounds doable! I may only ever do this once but a Snake tap is only $25... couldn't hurt to have one handy in the future either.

I just called the liquor store to find out the availability of a keg of Brooklyn Lager. Still debating the second beer but I may go for a keg of Yuengling Lager.
 
You'd need a Sankey coupler and go liquid out to a hose to you corney liquid into you 5gal than put your CO2 bottle (low pressure) to the gas in on the Sankey coupler. maybe wouldn't hurt to have a Gas ball lock connector on you corney just open to overflow- to bleed of pressure to fill. than use the CO2 On the Sankey gas in to push it over to the corney. once in the corney just put the co2 to it like normal to hold carbonation.
I'd go with just a store bought beer in a 5gal keg if you can get it, but I'm kinda new at this all too.
Any other thoughts?
 
Getting a log is the easiest thing to do. A lot of the smaller breweries are doing this now.
Like someone already said, you'll need a sankie tap.
 
A local brewpub will likely fill your cornies for you for pretty cheap (~$30 I would imagine). Might do away with some of the hassle if you have a local brewpub that you like.
 
You all obviously don't know where I live! heh

Its all good - if there is any beer I can handle 15 gallons of, its Boston Lager. Besides, its not like I'm short on cooler space (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=11440) :cross:

I ordered a Sanke tap from B3 today along with some other general supplies and have a pretty clear understanding how to pressure fill the cornies... it was the Sanke adapter that had me confused.

I talked with the Liquor store today and they are checking with their distributor tomorrow on the availability of Boston Brewery. Yuengling doesn't distribute in Georgia so I don't know whats going on my second tap. But you know, I may not have time to brew beer, but I bet I could make some of EdWort's Apfelwein! I could let that second tap sit empty for a month...
 
Just something to keep in mind if you go with the sixth barrel, your 4912 will only hold one sixth and a cornie or two cornies, not two sixths. They are just a bit wide than a cornie.


It sounds like you're going to have more fun with the transfer rig anyway.


:cross:
 
if i go to my local brew pub and have them fill it up.. should i set the pressure there? or will the co2 last until i get it home to my rig?
 
I'm still at least another month or so away from being able to devote any time to brewing, so I finally decided to do this today with a keg of Sweetwater's IPA. I had to hodge-podge everything together but it worked without a hitch.​

kegjump1.jpg


I had everything except the Sanke Valve and the Pressure Relief Valve. I got both from MoreBeer.com. I actually bought a few pressure relief valves and plan on using cornies as secondaries.

The first thing I did was pressurize the empty kegs to about 20 psi.

The Sanke keg has a 3/8" CO2 fitting and my regulator has a 1/4" fitting. I couldn't find an adapter, so I just bought a 6" piece of 3/8" hose and tightened it down directly on the regulator's male threads.

kegjump2.jpg


The Sanke Valve has a 5/8" male "beer out" valve. Luckily, my kegerator's tower had come with the matching female fitting which I connected to a 6' piece of 1/4" beer line.

kegjump3.jpg


I then connected the beer line to the "beer out" post on the empty keg and placed the pressure relief valve on the "gas in" post. Then I turned on the C02, opened the valve on the sanke keg, and adjusted the pressure relief valve until it began releasing pressure.

It took less than 10 minutes to fill each keg and it was easy to tell when the keg was full as the pressure relief valve would begin spitting foam. I used three five gallon cornies and one three gallon. I guess I got about 4.5 gallons in each five gallon keg and about 2 gallons in the 3 gallon keg.

kegjump4.jpg
 
In retrospect I probably could have but I wanted to control how fast the beer transferred - which the adjustable pressure relief valve allowed me to do.
 
John, you couldn't of picked a better beer, I love that IPA. I have know the brewers/owners of Sweetwater for long time and go down there as often as I can, I even get my yeast from them and let Kevin (the head brewer) critique my beers. Great brewery and great tours.....
 
It was a toss up between their IPA and the 420... both are great.

I hope to take a tour the next time I'm up that way. Sounds like a great group of guys. Wish we had something like it here in South GA... Thats really cool they share their yeast with you.
 
John Beere said:
It was a toss up between their IPA and the 420... both are great.

I hope to take a tour the next time I'm up that way. Sounds like a great group of guys. Wish we had something like it here in South GA... Thats really cool they share their yeast with you.

Let know when you plan on comung up and I will give you the personalized tour, plus if it's a Wd, Thurs or Fri they have there regular tour nights and that is a blast...
 
I don't know why I didn't read this thread earlier. I had the cables all ready for when I had a sankey/corny mix. Though I guess it would have cost the same to ship it than to pick it up locally.

Anyways, Sweet Water is pretty good. I had some when I came to Tallahassee. I had the 420, the Georgia Brown and The Hummer. I'm a little partial to the local guys(Lazy Mag) but wouldn't mind seeing a six pack or so show up over here.
 
Sorry to bump an ancient thread, but I need to do a transfer like this soon and have some questions for anybody that does this regularly.

1) Does it matter if the transferred beer is cold, or can it be room temp since you are transferring under pressure.

2) How long should I make the liquid jumper between two kegs?

3) What pressure should you set the relief valve? I'm assuming start at your regulator pressure and then dial it down a bit to get the beer moving? Would you use typical serving pressure (~12 psi) or go higher/lower?
 
I would think that doing this with warm beer would be possible but might involve more foaming issues spitting from the pressure relief valve. I also don't think the line length matters too much since you are basically controlling the back pressure during the transfer. Again, pressure shouldn't be big deal but ideally you would transfer the beer at the carbonation level that is desired(or already achieved!). So I would say 12 psi should be just fine. Good luck!
 
I'd transfer at a lower pressure - a couple PSI should be enough to get the beer moving (but keep any foaming to a minimum). Then hook the Corny up to serving/carb pressure once it's full. The jumper hose length shouldn't really matter in this case.
 
I still do this regularly. I feel it works best if the beer is cold, the jumper line is short, and the pressure is set to just a few psi. If done right, hardly any co2 will removed from suspension and the keg will immediately be ready to put on tap.
 
Found this video on youtube the other day, maybe this guy is from these forums??

 
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I just did this last night and it worked great. Took about 20min. As soon as I started getting foam from the pressure relief valve, I caught the foam with a pitcher and let it keep filling until the corny weighed about 48 lbs which should be 40lbs of beer and 8lbs for an empty corny. Drank the blue moon all night and it was perfect. Tonight, its got no head at all. No pressure has dropped. Not sure what happened. The beer did get up to about 50deg before I got it back into the fridge. I just bled the pressure and then took the CO2 ball lock and hooked it to the "beer out" side and pressurized it from the bottom of the tank in an attempt to force carb it. Seems to have worked though Im not sure it will last. Anyone have any ideas here?
Thanks
Adam
 
Thanks for this thread.

I was having major foaming issues from a sanke since my system is balanced for cornies. I saw somewhere in another thread that the dip tube on the commercial 1/6 sanke's is much wider.

In 10 minutes the beer was transferred into my corny and all is once again well in the world.
 
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