Kegging questions

[Dave T]

Hi - still new at brewing (just bottled my 4th and 5th brews and I’m hooked), but not fond of the multitude of bottles around the house (actually, I really don’t care, but my wife has some opinions), so looking at getting into kegging.

Questions:

When bottling, I use priming sugar, then bottle and cap, set aside for xx weeks. I can’t see anywhere, but when kegging, do I not use sugar, just put the fermented beer into the keg and pressurize with CO2?

Does the full keg need to be at 65f, or do I need to put it in a cooler?

Is there any buildup at the bottom once it’s ‘done’, similar to bottles?

How long will beer in a keg last - and do I have to keep it connected to the CO2 when it’s not actively being used?

Does the final volume need to be really close to 5gal for the corny kegs? Some of my 5gal batches have ended up at just over 4 gal - will the remaining volume just fill with CO2 and be fine?

Do I have to find a way to sanitize the CO2 lines?

Plenty of reading material on prepping and cleaning kegs, I’m sure I can find fittings easily, have spare CO2 tanks and hose is simple to find as well. Any other tidbits to doing this so I don’t ruin a batch because I missed some oddity?


Thanks

Dave

 

[Br3w4u]

There is a carbonation chart. You can use priming sugar if you want or you can bring it down to the desired temp and pressurize to the desired level and leave it for a few days to saturate with co2. Yes there will be build up. A keg can last for months if kept cold.

 

[ba-brewer]

You can prime in the keg just like a bottle, it would need to left at warmer temp while it carbs too. You use half the amount sugar as you would for bottles.

I rack from the fermentor to the keg and put on serving pressure in the cooler to slowly carb up over a week or two. There are tricks to speed up the process but most beers do better with a week or two of cold storage.

If you keg after the beer is finished fermenting and already started clearing on its own then you will not get too much sediment in the bottom of the keg. It is common to discard the first pint to clear the sediment. The couple of weeks of cold storage helps compact the yeast too.

You need to purge the head space of the keg with CO2 several times to get rid of oxygen, the larger your head space the more CO2 it will use. There are more advanced way of purging oxygen from kegs I will let you search those out.

I have not cleaned my co2 lines after installation, beer lines do need periodic cleaning.

 

[Dave T]

Thanks guys, appreciate the info.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Pardon my ignorance, @ba-brewer I am curious as to why only half the amount of priming sugar would be used for priming in the keg, if it is not put on CO2 until serving.

 

[govner1]

I use about 75% of the priming sugar/DME when keg conditioning. You’re going to have more yeast overall than with bottling where your yeast count can vary. Good advice re purging the head space after filling the keg. I also purge the keg prior to filling. I usually leave my keg at 68°-70° for at least ten days.
I avoid sediment when serving by shortening my dip tube by about an inch and adding a SS mesh filter to the end of the dip tube.

 

[ba-brewer]

Pardon my ignorance, @ba-brewer I am curious as to why only half the amount of priming sugar would be used for priming in the keg, if it is not put on CO2 until serving.

That is what comes up in beersmith, don't really know the reason but I believe it has something to do with the difference in headspace. Seems to work OK for me.

 

[Rev2010]

When bottling, I use priming sugar, then bottle and cap, set aside for xx weeks. I can’t see anywhere, but when kegging, do I not use sugar, just put the fermented beer into the keg and pressurize with CO2?

Correct. You can of course use priming sugar if you want but why bother when you have CO2 in a tank and can adjust to exactly the PSI (carbonation level) you want just the same and have it take much less time all while also cold conditioning? - something you can't do with sugar as you need to keep room temps.

Does the full keg need to be at 65f, or do I need to put it in a cooler?

You can do it either way but as mentioned above why not keep it cold so you're also cold conditioning at the same time?

Is there any buildup at the bottom once it’s ‘done’, similar to bottles?

Yes, but there's less of it as there's no bottle fermentation of the sugar and most of it is sucked out with the first pour. Common practice is to pour the first 4-6 ounces or so then dump it. From there you're good.

How long will beer in a keg last - and do I have to keep it connected to the CO2 when it’s not actively being used?

Can't say for sure, but bars have had non-popular kegs sitting on tap for months and I don't think there's much degradation in quality. Plus it wouldn't really be all that different with bottles except bottles let in a certain amount of light when kegs let in zero light. And no, you don't have to keep it connected to CO2, but most people do - you're not going to lose CO2 as once it's carbed to your set PSI it won't go above or lower if it's just sitting idle.

Does the final volume need to be really close to 5gal for the corny kegs? Some of my 5gal batches have ended up at just over 4 gal - will the remaining volume just fill with CO2 and be fine?

Not at all. You can fill a 5 gallon keg with just 2 gallons of beer if you wanted. You would just want to make sure to purge the O2 in the empty keg space with CO2.

Do I have to find a way to sanitize the CO2 lines?

You don't need to "find a way" as sanitizing beer lines is super easy (no sanitizing of CO2 lines needed). There's soooo many ways to do it. You could simply fill a 5 gallon keg with sanitizer and then hook it up and open the tap to push it out of the keg with CO2. Many people do that. Up till now I use a hand pump cleaner that I hookup to the tower and pump in the solution in reverse but I may start pushing sanitizer out the keg like most others do.

All that said... once you go kegging you likely will wish you did it sooner and never look back


Rev.

 

[Dave T]

Thanks again - great responses, very appreciative.

Getting a couple cornys for my next set of brews (this week) - I’m sure I’ll have more as I go through.

Happy New Year

 

[Dave T]

Ok, as I said, more questoins. Got a decent price on 8 pin lock corny kegs, ok condition i guess.

Bought all new seal kits, and all new poppet assemblies. Couple spare fittings as well.

Some of the covers have what looks like a relief valve (automatic), others have a straight rod with no corresponding hole inside. Is it needed (or worth it) to buy a bunch of manual reliefs and drill into the covers, or just leave them alone?

Plan is to completely disassemble, tubes and all, soak in a hot sanitizer bath for a day, reassemble and pressure test. Should I do something else? Don’t intend to replace any tubes, but judging from some odors, I’ll need a long pipe cleaner for a couple.

See a lot of pin lock vs ball lock debates, assume starting fresh it doesn’t matter, and i’ll Probably never need more than 8 kegs, and if I do it’s going to be right before liver failure sets in, or as I move up in batch size. ‘Conversion kits’ - basically new posts - now is the time if any fatal flaws with pin lock (other than ruining a socket because I’m a cheapskate at heart), before I get any connectors.


Thanks again!

Dave

 

[Dave T]

Ok one more - not all the kegs had a short tube, concern? And some were 1/4”, some were 1.5” - leading me to believe they’re inconsequential. Looks like I need to get more gaskets at a minimum.

Ok, 2 more - once I’m done disassembling, cleaning, reassembling - I don’t need to do this after every use do I?

Thanks

Dave

 

[day_trippr]

All cornelius style kegs require two dip tubes with intact/undamaged flanges because the flange is required to compress the small O-ring underneath between the threaded keg riser and the post. It's the "squish" that bulges that small O-ring out enough to seal against the inside of the post, and without the flange that squish isn't going to happen.

The gas dip tube can be barely long enough to hold the O-ring - there's no need for it to be any longer. Indeed I cut all sixteen gas tubes on my keg fleet down to 1/2" or even a bit less (I wasn't being critical) so the odds of inadvertently backwashing beer up a gas line are that much lower.

While I usually just clean my kegs (on a Mark II) I'll fully break them down on occasion for inspection/thorough cleaning of posts/poppets/dip tubes...

Cheers!

 

[ba-brewer]

initially PBW or oxyclean clear(unscented) soak and rinse, repeat until they don't smell of soda. Then put the lid on and allow to sit for an hour and check again. Once cleaned sanitize before filling.

I think the right answer is to break down the keg between uses and give a quick soak in cleaner, but I usually just give a good rinse until it looks clean and run a brush down the dip tubes. A more thorough periodic cleaning is needed to remove beer stone.

post a pic of your lid in question might be helpful.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

Ok, 2 more - once I’m done disassembling, cleaning, reassembling - I don’t need to do this after every use do I?

Thanks

Dave

No. Not every time. I have kegs that haven't been cleaned in a year or so - just keep them filled with beer (Not that I recommend going a year between cleaning.) others that may have been sitting out for weeks without beer in them seldom pass the sniff test and need to be cleaned. The ones that go right back into the pipelineI get filled halfway with sanitizer, flip upside down for a few minutes, then flip right side up for a few more minutes before each fill.

And were not talking full disassembly either. Just a soak in oxyclean and a good rinse. I really only ever disassemble and clean when the keg is new to me or other maintenance is required (changing poppets, o-rings, etc)

 

[Dave T]

Awesome, thanks. Guess I need to buy some gas side tubes, only had about 4 of 8.