First time kegging questions, Help!!

[Agher32]

Just wanted to get some tips and tricks for my first time kegging. I have a belgian ipa that's ready to be bottled. And wouldn't you know, I'm sick of bottling. So, I bought a kegerator. Came with a 20 lb co2 tank and a regulator. I have all the fittings and a corny keg from my lhbs. I'd like to keg this on Friday and have it ready for Saturday night. Any suggestions on force carb? Also with how I should go about cleaning this kegerator and beer line for the first time.

 

[number40fan]

Cold crash the beer now.

Clean the keg, lines and fittings with oxi-clean free. If you don't have a way to pump the cleaner through them, drop in a hot bucket of water with the oxi. Make sure to get the hoses full of the cleaner.

Rinse the heck out of everything.

Star-San is a good sanitizer. Your LHBS might have some. Dip everything in a diluted solution. If you have been bottling, hopefully you have some.

Clean the fridge with the oxi. Then sanitize with the Star-San. Obviously can't dip it in a bucket, but a bucket with cleaner, a rag and some elbow grease. Plug it in and get it to your cold crash temp.

Fill the keg with your IPA. Depending on the temp that you cold crashed it at, set the CO2 pressure to desired pressure. ~10 psi at 38°. With the CO2 hooked up, shake the piss out of the keg. You'll hear the CO2 going it. Do this for ~10 minutes off and on, maybe longer. Gets tiresome. Stick in your cooled fridge and let it sit.

 

[Demus]

I'd fill it with PBW and push some of that through the lines to get everywhere. Let it sit overnight, then disassemble the keg to rinse and inspect all the parts. Replace any suspect o-rings or poppits. Reassemble and repeat with sanitizer of your choice. Push some thru the lines to make sure it gets into the dip tube. This also blows the PBW out of ur lines. Let it sit an hour, then pop it open, dump it out and set upside down to drip. Use something pointed like a small screwdriver to push open the poppits briefly draining the sanitizer in there. Now you're ready to bottle... One big 5 gallon bottle!


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[number40fan]

On second thought, if your LHBS is close, ditch the lines if they came with the fridge. Get some new ones. Go 10+ feet on the tap line.

 

[kcmobrewer]

Get it cold and force carb at serving pressure. Carbonation will be low but it'll have bubbles. That's what I do. In a week it'll be perfect.


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[catalanotte]

Get it as cold as you can. I use two tricks to speed up carbonation. Hook up the co2 gas line to the liquid out. This bubbles your co2 from the bottom. Second is to crank pressure to 30psi and shake. You'll hear the gas pumping into the keg. Shake a few times, let rest for a minute, and repeat. Set the regulator to your target psi and bleed the keg back down before you put it back in the fridge. Do this 3-4 times over the 24 hours you have and you should be fine.

 

[Agher32]

Ok. Status update. Cleaned everything. Cold crashed at 39 degrees for a day straight. Racked into the keg. Forced carbed at 30 psi while agitating it for about 5 minutes, turned down to 10 psi. Tried it out today, annnnd foam. Wasting about half the beer, if not more. I've been reading ALL these threads and I'm trying to get an idea of where to start. I put a brand new 6 ft line in, and a new faucet as well. I'd assume my beer is over carbonated, but I have no clue and unsure how to get it under control. Brewing an oatmeal stout tonight, and I'd love to have a beer to go at while brewing

 

[G-Hog]

Did you burp the keg before you turned the psi down to 10? And 6ft lines don't usually work. Most people have at least 10 feet.


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[Yooper]

First, 6 feet of line is simply not enough. I'd start with a minimum of 10 feet. But 12 feet would be even better.

Mostly, the problem is the force carbing rapidly like that. Think about a bottle of Coke. Shake it hard and open it. That is pretty much what you did with the beer. That's why burst carbing like that doesn't usually work.

Normally, a good way to carb up a beer is to put it at 12 psi at 40° for about a week or two. That works perfectly each and every time.

If I am in a huge hurry, though, I will put it in the kegerator (absolutely no shaking!) at 30 PSI for 36 hours. Then purge the keg and reset to 12 psi. In three days it is very nicely carbed and clear as well without a lot of sediment suspended in it.

It really is nearly impossible to carb up a keg of beer nicely in 24 hours. Oh sure, it can have carbonation, but that doesn't mean it will won't be foamy or full of sediment or even taste as good as it will in two days.

Since it was shaken at 30 psi, it is over carbonated. The only fix for that would be to take it off of the gas and purge the keg as often as you can. Once it is no longer over carbonated, it can be put back on the gas at 12 psi and 40°.

 

[jeff13]

There are equations and beer line calculators out there I use. It depend on temperature, pressure, hose diameter, height to faucet, shank bore an length. I have ~4 foot line on my 10 psi and ~5ft line on my 12psi. Pours like a dream every time. I'd look into the charts once you get your carbonation leveled

 

[Agher32]

Thanks everyone. Running 10ft or more line would make my kegerator a jungle. Fortunately, I was able to get the temp below 40 which has calmed it down a bit. For the future. No more shaking! I have 6 feet of line in there right now with a tap tower above.

 

[Agher32]

One more question. And I apologize for my lack of knowledge on this. Damm, I've been reading up on this kegging thing for the past two months solid. Apparently EVERYTHING with brewing is trial and error haha. But, anyways. Now that it's heavily carbonated. I should just let it settle. Keep it at 10 psi til it's gone?

 

[day_trippr]

The presumption is you overcarbed that keg of beer, hence you actually don't want to put any CO2 on the keg until you've tamed it by releasing the head space pressure every time you think of it over a day or two. After a day of that you can put low pressure on the keg to draw a pour to see how it's doing; if it's still foamy cut the CO2 again and keep popping the keg PRV (or the gas post poppet if no manual PRV) for another day and try again.

As for the beer line, you might be surprised how well PVC beer line will coil. I have 12' Bevlex-200 runs on all of my taps and I simply coiled the slack so it fits inside the keg rubbers and secured the coils with tie-wraps.

There are probably a thousand "beer line length calculators" in print and on the web. I'd guess 99.99% are copies of the original - which got it wrong from the jump. Hence the 5' lines that seems to be the default for dispensing kits.

If you want to understand why 5' really doesn't work well except under ideal conditions (low carb level, very cold temperature, no stratification or thermal gradients anywhere in the system) you might spend 10 minutes checking out the site of the only beer line length calculator work using...

Cheers!

 

[Demus]

10 psi is high on my system for serving pressure. I use 6 and he perfect pours, but my lines are only about 6'...
I'd crank it down to 5, burp the head space from your keg and see how it pours. The idea is to get a god pour and just enough pressure to maintain the carbonation....


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[Agher32]

I want to thank EVERYONE for their help. Everything settled out after I froze it a bit on accident haha. But, now we're at 38 degrees and 10 psi. The Belgian IPA tastes smooth and pouring great

 

[catalanotte]

Looks like a nice glass of brew. Congrats and enjoy.