First time kegging question

I am all ready to keg my beer for the first time (well almost ready, I've got another 5 days of dry hopping first). I intend on then cold crashing for a day based on a suggestion from the forum before racking to the keg.

In order to ensure I have the process down I was thinking about kegging some water this weekend and force carbing it (I'd much rather waste water than beer if something goes wrong). My question is that if I clean and sanitise before kegging/carbing the water, will I still need to resanitise when I rack my beer (assuming I empty it of sparkling water just before racking)?

 

Why not just do the water experiment first and then sanitize? Removes all doubt.

 

That's what I was thinking. Only advantage of sanitising first is that I can do it over the weekend when I have spare time, rather than trying to fit it in during the evening next week.

 

Sanitizing the keg should take 2 minutes, tops. Fill halfway with water and 1/2oz. of starsan, put lid on, shake, roll, turn upside down once or twice...once you have everything ready to rack, pour starsan mix from keg into bucket, throw racking cane/autosiphon into that bucket and slap some of the solution all over it, then rack.

Takes no time at all.

 

My process only takes maybe 10-15 minutes if I'm being extremely thorough. Curious as to what yours entails? Question to the OP.

 

Probably only a short process too, I hadn't really given it much thought. Think I'll go with running through the process this weekend with water and no sanitisation then cold crash for 24 hours in the middle of next week (after 7 days dry hopping) then sanitise keg and rack beer to it. I'm assuming I won't need to reclean.

 

You are assuming correctly.

 

Or you could combine the steps and carbonate some Star San right?

 

Two birds one stone. Nice thinking. I imagine the foam would be crazy.

 

Epic thinking. Of course, tasting the sample to verify proper carbonation might not be too pleasant.

 

Or.
Carb the water, test, then de-pressure and add the StarSan to sanitize.

 

winner!