Cold crashing and kegging

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Elfmaze

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I just finished primary on a cider. OG 1.075 FG .995. Racked it into the corney keg, cranked the pressure shook and have it stabalized around 30psi(i will have to purge the headspace a couple times but wanted to check the leak down of a new keg).


I placed it in a refridgerator but have not added the concentrate to back sweeten yet. Will the cold be sufficient to prevent the yeast from going to town on the new sugars? What is the best way to make sure i don't get a pressure spike?

I would prefer not to use K-meta because of the sulfer production. though tis is my first batch so i may just be naieve.
 
It depends on the yeast, and how "alive" they still are. I'd probably go ahead and use the sulfite and sorbate just to be sure. If you don't want to use them, you might be just fine keeping it in the fridge after backsweetening. The worse thing that can happen is it doesn't entirely stop fermentation, and you get a little extra carbonation.
 
Can probably keep it cold easy enough. I hav ealso wondered about the sediment that settles durring aging. Do people just tap this off from the bottom or rack it to another keg?
 
this is probably kegging 101. But i had the pressure set to 10psi and it was foaming like crazy out of the keg. I had to blow off the head pressure to almost nothing to get it to pour. BTW i am using tap directly of the keg. No line. keg is refridgerated, but i don't have exact numbers yet.
 
Oh yea, 10 lbs, you want a 5 to 6 ft line out of the keg or your be getting a foam bath on every draft, even if you dropped the pressure down to 3 lbs, just enough to push the cider at a trickle it will still foam.
You still may have a little fermentation going on increasing the pressure, right now I would just turn off the CO2 and only turn it on when your getting no flow at all.
 
so the short faucet connection is better suited for party situations rather than constant use? Keep the pressure up to carbonate, purge and tap low?
 
Yes, Those short party taps are OK, for a party where the beer is going to float in a few hours and using just enough co2 to push it. But the beer will slowly de-carb if the pressure is below 8-13 lbs depending on the style. The more head space you get in the keg, the more co2 will be absorbed into the beer and you need a longer line to equalize it.
There a number of beer line calculators out there, and and tons of info under the bottling and kegging section here. Though the simple answer is to get a good flow from a standard carbonized beer, you need around 5 to 6 ft of 3/16" ID line for beer lines. (I had to look that up, I really suck at fractions).
 
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