Re-assembling corny keg / replacing rings

Howdy-- almost got my system up and going.
Have old CO2 tank that will hopefully get me going till it is empty.
Have 2 corny kegs
Have CO2 regulator
Have chilling unit
Need hoses but that'll be easy enough

QUESTION(s): I have disassembled after finally sourcing proper wrenches. I took awhile to figure out what was needed for the CO2 side; did the liquid side/dip tube side a couple days prior and---

when I took apart the CO2 side, the rubber ring is not directly beneath the 'nipple' attachment, but is between the stainless tube and the main housing.

I could have sworn when I took the liquid side apart the rubber ring was just sitting on top of the dip tube, between it and the nipple. Because I certainly don't remember (I only had two beer during the task!) running the ring allllllll the way down the dip tube and around the bend and off.

Is this correct?


And another side question: first brew to go in is a Hefeweizen, nice and fresh. New to this so I need to read. But: who uses priming sugar/DME for kegging and who just lets CO2 do the work? For the hefe, potentially more flavour with the wheat DME I might potentially add.

Dangers?

Thanks!

the little o-rings for the gas and liquid dip tubes should be surrounding the tube. You slide them on from the bottom side of the dip tube until they hit the flared part at the top of the tube.

forgot to address the other question.

I used to just use the CO2 to force carb my beers, but it always disrupted my beer pipeline because I had to put an undrinkable keg in my little 2-keg kegerator and wait for a couple weeks to drink it.

I recently started priming my new kegs with a couple oz of corn sugar and letting them carb up at room temp. This allows me to keep two kegs of actual drinkable beer on tap while carbing up new kegs (plus is should save a considerable amount of the CO2 in the tank since I am really only using that CO2 to serve the beer.)

Thanks for the input on the rings! Had I not asked, I would have been sillly and just gone ahead and filled it up and tested it.

I did not (99.9%) run the rings down the tube and off for cleaning. So they are refurbished kegs, so whomever did it must have just slapped it back together like that.

So, nipple, poppet assemly straight onto the metal stainless tubes, and both sides have ring between tube flare and main housing.

Gotcha.

Are you prime-carbing the regular amount of time ("21 days") as you would bottling?

Then I guess you can just attach CO2, do a purge (?) and set your serving temp? Or do you still let it force-carb from CO2?

I need to do more reading, but figured I'd ask in this thread anyway.

Jfriah said:

Are you prime-carbing the regular amount of time ("21 days") as you would bottling?

Then I guess you can just attach CO2, do a purge (?) and set your serving temp? Or do you still let it force-carb from CO2?

Click to expand...

Just litting it sit for 2 weeks at room temp seems to do the trick just fine for me.

When a vacancy opens up in the kegerator, I take the empty keg out, vent the new (warm) keg's headspace, hook it to the gas, and put it in the kegerator.

It takes a while for it to get cold, but it's ready to drink when it does get cold.

I don't know if the sugar I am using is giving me precisely the right amount of CO2 in the beer, but it's probably pretty close. If the beer is still undercarbed, it will absorb some from the tank. If it is overcarbed, it will eventually settle out as I drink from either of the taps.