1st Time Kegging

[FireEmt37]

I'm getting ready to keg for the 1st time. Ive read many methods of transferring from the fermenter to the keg. I was planning on racking right into the keg then closing it up, sealing it up and chilling overnight before carbonating.

I just read about filling with sanitizer, forcing it out with CO2 and then filling back through the liquid side without opening it up to eliminate all O2. Is this neccessary?

I wasnt planning on introducing a lot of 02 just like bottling. Looking for any advice from you guys and gals. Thanks.

 

[mongoose33]

Is it necessary? Not if you don't want the best beer you can produce. Then it's not.

Increasingly people are seeing the damage that oxidation does to beer. Some depends on the kind of beer--IPAs are probably the most susceptible to oxidation damage--but it's not helpful to any beer unless the recipe and flavor profile calls for oxidation.

I follow a process of continuous quality improvement (or process improvement, if you like). Every time I try to find a place to do something better. Eliminating oxygen--other than oxygenating wort at the outset of yeast pitch--has been part of that exercise.

So--it sounds harder than it is, it just takes a time or three to get comfortable with it. Some has to do with the equipment needed, but that's mostly just making jumpers and transfer lines from QDs.

*****

I personally fill my kegs with sanitizer, then push that out using CO2 applied through the IN post. I push it into another clean keg, usually, so that one's ready to purge next time. If I don't have the spare keg, I use a 5-gallon bucket to store it until next time. Or for sanitizing stuff. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

The first time, before I push that sanitizer to a new clean keg, I'll let some CO2 bubble up from the bottom dip tube, to create bubbles on top (be careful if you do this, a full CO2 blow will cause santizer to erupt from the open mouth of the keg. Don't ask me how I know this ).

That fills the headspace area, under the lid and such with bubbles, which contain....CO2! Then I put the lid in place, amidst all those bubbles, and then push out the star san into the next keg. Voila! Purged keg.

There will be some pressure in the purged keg; I'll attach a line to the OUT post, and tilt the keg so as to blow out the last little sanitizer.

Then, I'll rack the beer into the OUT side, opening the PRV on top to release the pressure. And then we have beer transferred to a purged keg, no outside oxygen getting in to start oxidizing my beer.

Here's a pic showing the bubble thing:

A pic showing the jumper I use to transfer sanitizer from keg to keg:

 

[FireEmt37]

Is it necessary? Not if you don't want the best beer you can produce. Then it's not.

Increasingly people are seeing the damage that oxidation does to beer. Some depends on the kind of beer--IPAs are probably the most susceptible to oxidation damage--but it's not helpful to any beer unless the recipe and flavor profile calls for oxidation.

I follow a process of continuous quality improvement (or process improvement, if you like). Every time I try to find a place to do something better. Eliminating oxygen--other than oxygenating wort at the outset of yeast pitch--has been part of that exercise.

So--it sounds harder than it is, it just takes a time or three to get comfortable with it. Some has to do with the equipment needed, but that's mostly just making jumpers and transfer lines from QDs.

*****

I personally fill my kegs with sanitizer, then push that out using CO2 applied through the IN post. I push it into another clean keg, usually, so that one's ready to purge next time. If I don't have the spare keg, I use a 5-gallon bucket to store it until next time. Or for sanitizing stuff. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

The first time, before I push that sanitizer to a new clean keg, I'll let some CO2 bubble up from the bottom dip tube, to create bubbles on top (be careful if you do this, a full CO2 blow will cause santizer to erupt from the open mouth of the keg. Don't ask me how I know this ).

That fills the headspace area, under the lid and such with bubbles, which contain....CO2! Then I put the lid in place, amidst all those bubbles, and then push out the star san into the next keg. Voila! Purged keg.

There will be some pressure in the purged keg; I'll attach a line to the OUT post, and tilt the keg so as to blow out the last little sanitizer.

Then, I'll rack the beer into the OUT side, opening the PRV on top to release the pressure. And then we have beer transferred to a purged keg, no outside oxygen getting in to start oxidizing my beer.

Here's a pic showing the bubble thing:

View attachment 631454

A pic showing the jumper I use to transfer sanitizer from keg to keg:

View attachment 631455

Cool. Do you wait to chill the beer before starting carbonation or just start assuming it will chill as it goes?

 

[kevin58]

Chilling before hooking up CO2 is not necessary. In fact as soon as you close up the keg you want to hook up the CO2... let it fill and pull the pressure relief valve a couple of times to purge any O2 in the headspace. Waiting for your beer to chill with that O2 in the keg may be (probably is) harmful to your beer.

 

[mongoose33]

Cool. Do you wait to chill the beer before starting carbonation or just start assuming it will chill as it goes?

Some of how one does this depends on their setup. I have a Spike CF10 conical fermenter; I seal it up with approximately 7-10 gravity points to go in fermentation and let it self-carbonate. Given the limits of the system, that produces about 1.5 volumes of CO2 in the beer. That's close to 12-13 psi at 69 degrees, but when you chill it to 40 or less, you get down to around 7.5 psi.

I always crash before I transfer--the point is to let yeast and such settle out before I transfer to keg. You can do it warm, but then you lose that advantage. When I do fermentation in a plastic fermenter, which I still do once in a while when my CF10 is full, I can't self-carbonate it, but I still crash before transferring to keg.

BTW, cold beer accepts CO2 more readily than warm beer. As an example, if I wanted 2.5 volumes of CO2 of carbonation, at 65 degrees I'd need to apply 29psi, over an extended period, to add that much CO2 to the beer.

But if I chill it to, say, 40 degrees, I only need about 12psi (again over an extended period) to get the 2.5 volumes of CO2 into the beer.

Attached below is a carb chart, and you can see at the intersection of temp and pressure how many volumes of CO2 you get--which is where the above figures come from. Of course, you adjust as needed depending on the carbonation level you're looking for.

 

[Jag75]

I think everybody starts open transfers. It isnt as hard as it seems as Mongoose said. Follow his posts and you will never have an issue with oxidation. I think I've done a few open transfers . None hoppy but 1 did get oxidation . Now countless keg transfers later and never had any issues . I will always do the starsan purged closed transfers . You sanitize a keg before filling with beer anyways .

 

[Blazinlow86]

What mongoose said. Its only required if you want to make the best beer possible and that can be said for alot of other things too. If it's your first time and your not setup for it yet you can skip it but it should be something you eventually do. Cheers