Conical to Keg Illustrated

"billtzk" started a thread a week or so ago about how to push beer from a conical to a keg, so I decided to take a few pictures today while I did just that...

First, here is my CO2 rig. It is really as simple as it looks. I set the pressure to about 4~5 psi.



Photo of the end of the hose pushed through the bung.



Here is a picture of the ends of my transfer hose that goes to the "out" port on the keg.

Here is the pressure relief valve on the "in" port of the keg - it is basically set to 0~2 psi.



The CO2 hooked up to the conical.



And finally, it pushing the beer.

The ingenuity of folks on this board always amazes me.

Looks great!

Sweet! It does look like your relief valve is spraying pizza sauce though.

How do you prevent overfilling the keg?

Thanks John Beere. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

It looks like you are using a plastic QD on the conical racking port valve. I think I'll try just pushing a hose on the plastic hose barb that came with my conical.

What kind of quick connect is that you have attached to your beer out post on the keg? It doesn't look like a normal black plastic beer out connector.

Where do you get those pressure relief valves?

EdWort said:

Sweet! It does look like your relief valve is spraying pizza sauce though.

How do you prevent overfilling the keg?

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Heh... that's just a stain from some previous project.

The beer was chilled all the way down to 32 for two days before transfering. Its very clear how full the kegs are as they fill due to the condensation that forms on the outside... but once you hear gurgling from the pressure relief valve, you know its done! just gotta be ready for it...

billtzk said:

Thanks John Beere. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

It looks like you are using a plastic QD on the conical racking port valve. I think I'll try just pushing a hose on the plastic hose barb that came with my conical.

What kind of quick connect is that you have attached to your beer out post on the keg? It doesn't look like a normal black plastic beer out connector.

Where do you get those pressure relief valves?

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The Quick Disconnects and the pressure relief valve came from MoreBeer.com. The disconnect on the beer out post is one I picked up in a lot on eBay. It is stainless and has a larger hose barb / thread than a regular disconnect.

What do you guys do with all that beer? I'm going to assume it's all kegged. I don't like the idea of using up 3 kegs for 1 type of beer. You must have alot of friends that help you consume it or somthing.

2 kegs actually - brewing 10 gallon batches. The extra space in the fermenters is just head space fermentation.

You'd be suprised how fast it goes. One 5 gallon corny = 40 pints. That doesn't last long when a few "friends" show up...

Hey, what type of relief valve is that? Is it adjustable?

The thumbscrew on the end is adjustable - MoreBeer sells them, or at least used to sell them...

WortMonger said:

Hey, what type of relief valve is that? Is it adjustable?

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Looks quite similar to the one I recently bought from Northern Brewer, halfway down this page:

NORTHERN BREWER: Gas Hardware

I'm going to use mine to aid in transferring beer from commercial kegs to cornies to fit into my soon-to-be finished keezer.

John Beere said:

2 kegs actually - brewing 10 gallon batches. The extra space in the fermenters is just head space fermentation.

You'd be suprised how fast it goes. One 5 gallon corny = 40 pints. That doesn't last long when a few "friends" show up...

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Your not kidding I had 2 cases go already, and I was being cautious about giving them out.

I transferred 10 gallons of beer from my conical to two kegs this evening using this technique. It worked perfectly. Thank you John Beere.

Glad it worked out for you. I had originally considered building a storage unit that was about two feet tall that I could sit both Freezers on to gravity feed into kegs, but this is way easier. I haven't really worked out the amount of CO2 used, but it seems as if it is minimal.

It is amazing how minimal CO2 you use transferring. I am still wishing I could collect more of my vented CO2 from brewing. I guess that has been discussed to no end though, lol. I love not having to move full kegs of beer, I am getting a dolly with tracks so I don't have to move anything anymore.

WortMonger said:

It is amazing how minimal CO2 you use transferring. I am still wishing I could collect more of my vented CO2 from brewing. I guess that has been discussed to no end though, lol. I love not having to move full kegs of beer, I am getting a dolly with tracks so I don't have to move anything anymore.

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if you're not lugging gallons of wort and beer around, how are you burning off all your consumption calories?!

BerserkerBrew said:

if you're not lugging gallons of wort and beer around, how are you burning off all your consumption calories?!

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I tend to think that between the praying (that everything goes right) and the stress (that everything goes right) you'd be suprised how many calories get burned.

LOL, good answer right there, lol.

John Beere said:

...I set the pressure to about 4~5 psi...

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i just got a fermenator and am about to rack my first batch under pressure. i filter as well and am really hoping i can just filter straight from the fermentator.

i typically use a plate filter at ~5-7 psi, but blichmann claims it should only be pressurized to 3 psi. i noticed you said you use 4-5psi. does anyone know what at pressure the relief valve actually starts to bleed off?

LOL have you seen John's "brew room" lets just say he has a bar bigger than a lot of real bars and has a 10 tap beer tower

So does that pressure relief valve just make it so you don't have to manually open the pressure valve yourself while the keg is filling?

Frost said:

What do you guys do with all that beer? I'm going to assume it's all kegged. I don't like the idea of using up 3 kegs for 1 type of beer. You must have alot of friends that help you consume it or somthing.

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Yes but there is also one on the lid hatch of the conical to prevent overpressurizing the conical which is what in talking about

mb2696 said:

i just got a fermenator and am about to rack my first batch under pressure. i filter as well and am really hoping i can just filter straight from the fermentator.

i typically use a plate filter at ~5-7 psi, but blichmann claims it should only be pressurized to 3 psi. i noticed you said you use 4-5psi. does anyone know what at pressure the relief valve actually starts to bleed off?

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In case anyone else is interested in doing something similar, this DID work for me using a plate filter with 7um pads. It took about an hour, but I went slowly intentionally because I wanted to make sure I could do the whole batch on one set of pads. It could probably go faster, but I just set it up and checked on it every 10-15 mins or so once I had a feel for the transfer rate. I turned the regulator up until the gas just started flowing, then set the pressure relief on the kegs so I could see the beer moving.

John Beere said:

Here is the pressure relief valve on the "in" port of the keg - it is basically set to 0~2 psi.

Click to expand...

Just wondering, what is the benefit of having the pressure relief valve vs. just connecting a gas connect with the port open?

Probably not much.. But I do like to hear it 'whistle' as it fills and I know it's hit the short gas in dip tub as soon as it stops whistling and starts sputtering beer.

I also do this to transfer commercially kegged been into corneys but set it to around 15 psi at the sankey end and around the same, but just barely less on the corney end so everything stays under pressure..