Kegging Commercially

What is the most efficient way to keg MULTIPLE kegs...I read posts about you having to leave the co2 tank hooked up to the keg for a period of one day to a week.

If i want to do 100 kegs quickly what is the most efficient way?Multiple tanks?

I'm not totally clear on what you're asking here because it sounds like a couple of different things are going.

Are you asking about carbonating 100 kegs? That is where you would need to have gas hooked up to a keg for a period of time.
Are you talking about putting beer in 100 kegs and the most efficient way to do that?
Are you talking about commercial sankey kegs or corny kegs?

A little bit of clarity would be helpful.

Commercial breweries usually carbonate in Bright Tanks while they cold crash and condition. The kegs get filled from the bright tanks.

On a homebrew scale this would similar to carbing in a 1/2bbl Sanke and then filling 3 5 gallon cornies with the already carbonated beer.

mullenite said:

Commercial breweries usually carbonate in Bright Tanks while they cold crash and condition. The kegs get filled from the bright tanks.

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+1. The most efficient way to carbonate for either bottles or kegs is to not use the bottles or kegs for the carbonation when more than 2-3 containers are involved.

Note that you could also do it like the bottlers do it homebrew style, and add priming sugar, mix well, and keg.

I have nothing to add to this other than wanting to know why the OP needs a method to carbonate 100 kegs all at once!

Is somebody over the yearly limit of homebrew a person can make?

Someone made a reference about carbing the bright beer tank and then just filling the kegs. How would I carb my tank? I have a plastic 500 gallon tank

Can it hold pressure?

You can carb it just like you carb any other vessel (force carb or prime) as long as it is airtight and can hold pressure.

I have helped out at my local a few times and they basically fill the tank with CO2 and fill it from the bottom with beer with the CO2 valve open. Once it's full they can check their yield, hook it up to CO2 and set the temperature to 34F.

Interesting mullenite....Im interested in the whole commercial brewing process. So they open the co2 valve to how many psi and begin to fill the vessel from the bottom up. When it reaches the top they turn off the co2 or have it still running for how long of a perod of time...How long after this process do they begin to fill the kegs?

They fill the tank with CO2 and let it sit to form a blanket. They fill the tank with beer from the bottom up and open the pressure release valve to let the blankey bleed out as the tank fills. Once full they hook up the gas and set to 34F for about two weeks to carb and condition.

The tanks are glycol cooled.

Kegs get filled one at a time with an automatic filler. It basically purges the keg of air and fills until liquid hits the open valve.

Similar process at the brewery where I worked.

Filtration draws from a conditioning tank and into the bright beer tank. Once in the BB tank the CO2 is hooked up to an aeration/carbonation stone (the same concept as those used for aquariums) and set to 15psi. It sits overnight and the beer is at 2.4 vol/CO2 in the morning. (usually LOL) It's also being filtered cold and carbonated cold, both pretty near 32º.

From the bright beer tank the choices are bottling or kegging depending on the need.

First, you need to know if the tank can handle the pressure. Only the manufacturer can tell you.

To carbonate a bunch of cornies at the same time, you'd need to use multiple secondary regulators.

This is all very interesting...So i cant take a plastic 500 gallon tank. If it can handle the pressure. Create a blanket of Co2 in it and then fill it with beer and it will be carbonated over night?

Any other ideas or efficient ideas you guys got for a plastic 500 gallon tank

david_42 said:

First, you need to know if the tank can handle the pressure. Only the manufacturer can tell you.

To carbonate a bunch of cornies at the same time, you'd need to use multiple secondary regulators.

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Why would you need multiple secondary regulators? I can't see any reason you would need to, all the kegs will be carbed at the same pressure so would you not just split the reg outlet to how many kegs you have.

Shamrock28 said:

This is all very interesting...So i cant take a plastic 500 gallon tank. If it can handle the pressure. Create a blanket of Co2 in it and then fill it with beer and it will be carbonated over night?

Any other ideas or efficient ideas you guys got for a plastic 500 gallon tank

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My guess would be no. The blanket of CO2 is not going to be enough to carb the beer only to protect it from O2. You need a substantial sized tank of CO2 and an aeration stone in the beer and leave the CO2 running over night in order to do what you want. That's where the tank holding the pressure would come in. Our tanks at the brewery were at or around 15 psi the morning after.

YMMV

Shamrock28 said:

This is all very interesting...So i cant take a plastic 500 gallon tank. If it can handle the pressure. Create a blanket of Co2 in it and then fill it with beer and it will be carbonated over night?

Any other ideas or efficient ideas you guys got for a plastic 500 gallon tank

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They are talking about bright tanks with cooling systems, or in cold rooms. I would think you will need a tank that can handle 50+ PSI Unless you have the tank in a giant cooler, it will be at room temperature. To carbonate warm beer takes a LOT more pressure. I don't know of a plastic tank that can do that...

Although a 500 gallon bottle bomb would be a sight to see...
(Poor beer )

The blanket of CO2 is just to keep the beer from being exposed to oxygen. The tank has CO2 being pumped in to it to carbonate the beer, it is usually around 12psi and then it gets dialed down once the beer is carbonated.

a pro brewer would know, but I don't think the pressures need to be any higher in a 500 gallon tank then in a 5 gallon tank to carbonate the beer. But the stress in the tank walls will be much higher in the larger tank. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_stresses. The formula, sigma = P * r / t, means that if you keep the same pressure (P), and wall thickness (t), the stress (sigma) experienced by the walls will go up with the radius (r) of the container. This could mean, for example, that a big plastic tank will simply tear apart under 10 psi of pressure, depending on the yield strength of the plastic. You should be able to call the tank manufacturer to find what pressures the tank is rated for. It's got to be at least strong enough to hold the weight of the liquid in it.
Also, commercial breweries use counter-pressure fillers for both bottles and kegs. As said above by others, they carbonate in a bright beer tank (equivalent to a secondary fermenter?) by either force carbing or by priming. Then they fill kegs or bottles under pressure. I know that counter pressure bottle fillers are marketed to homebrewers for filling bottles off of kegs. You might have to contact industrial suppliers for keg filling equipment though.

oh this just occurred to me after i mentioned the weight of the liquid. Every 27.7 inches of water adds 1 psi from the weight of the liquid. You can multiply this by the specific gravity of the beer to get more exact. so the static pressure in a big tank is going to vary from top to bottom.

What exactly does an aeration stone DO. Ive seen pictures and it just looks like a socket youd find at the end of a wrench. But i assume you put it on the end of the co2 regulator. what does it mean by an aeration stone in the beer?

Follow this link and skip to the bottom of the page where it starts to talk about aeration stones:

http://www.meheen-mfg.com/tankcarb.html

Shamrock28 said:

What exactly does an aeration stone DO. Ive seen pictures and it just looks like a socket youd find at the end of a wrench. But i assume you put it on the end of the co2 regulator. what does it mean by an aeration stone in the beer?

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I really hope you are just yanking everyones chain here..........
for starters, you wont be carbonating beer in a 500 galllon plastic tank. and since thats out of the question, if you really had 500 gallons of uncarbonated beer, you have to drop the temperature near freezing if you want it to happen fairly quicky and if I was handed this crazy proposition, I would use an inline carbonation stone and hope for the best, after it was chilled down.
if this is for real, good luck