Air tight transferring into the corny keg

[FuelshopMcgee]

Here is how I've been transferring into the keg..wondering if anyone else does something similar. I'm so afraid of oxygen getting into my beer that I tried to come up with the most airtight transfer I could think of.

It just so happens that a siphon fits perfectly into the end of a picnic tap. Once I clean/sanitize my keg and beer line this is how I get the beer into the keg. I pop the relief valve on top of the keg to keep back pressure from building up and stopping the beer. The way I see it is any leftover O2 in the keg is going to slowly get pushed out of the top. (I always purge my keg w/ cO2 before putting beer in anyway but this is just double-y safe Anyway hook the picnic tap up to the auto siphon it literally just snugs right in like it belongs there. Start the siphon and sit back and enjoy. I used the hanger and holder because I'm lazy and I don't like to have my hands tied up the entire time (the process can be quite slow towards the end.

But since it goes into the out tube it goes all the way down that stainless line to the bottom and spills in slowly. No splashing or sloshing at all.

The beer shown in the pics is my Oak'd meal raisin cookie which was an offshoot of an old recipe by a guy named bugeater.

If you want the recipe just ask and I'll put it up. I just drank a glass of non-carbonated brew and it was absolutely delicious. The beer sat for 9 weeks on med toast french oak cubes and the whole time I had bourbon soaking w/ cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and a scraped vanilla bean. That bourbon smelled/tasted so freakin awesome I can't wait to taste it all together.

ANYWAY here are the pics of my xfer setup.

The cO2 left in the secondary will keep any oxygen from getting into the carboy so this sanitized foil is just there to keep any nasties from dropping in during the xfer.

You can see the oak cubes floating in there...They never dropped down so I hope the flavor got out into the entire batch (I'm sure it did I could taste it in the sample)

This was the best bourbon they had on base in Germany...Not bad either on its own :laugh:

Again if you want the recipe for the oak'd meal raisin let me know I'll share

 

[kpr121]

That works, I guess. When i rack into corny using a regular racking cane it only splashes for literally half a second, once the tubing is below the liquid level, it is essentially doing the same thing.

You just have a few extra pieces to worry about cleaning (faucet, ball lock, post). But I like the ingenuity!

 

[FuelshopMcgee]

I guess the part I liked the most was being able to completely keep the lid closed on the corny. I did it the way you described in the past and have found that this way doesn't really add too much to the clean up since I'm also cutting out the clear tubing from the auto-siphon..Just the ball lock like you said which is a cinch to clean out Thanks for the reply

 

[mattd2]

I do it a similar way, I have a liquid QD with only hose on it that I use to siphon the beer out of the fermenter. I close the keg up and attach the liquid QD and another gas QD with a long(ish) hose to the keg and then suck on the gas hose to get the beer flowing then just let it drain into the keg. Super simple and no splashing - although I don't Worry about purging the keg first otherwise I would be knocked on my ass went I suck on the gas hose
I always had trouble keeping the hose under the liquid level in the keg before.

 

[shelly_belly]

I try to avoid oxygen altogether. I push mine with CO2. Here's my setup...

 

[FuelshopMcgee]

Nice! The picture isn't all that clear but it looks like you have an empty keg that is used to fill w/ c02 and push the beer out of that tubing? Does that tube just go down into the level where your not picking up any trub?

Also do you get any kind of stirring around or rousing when pushing it out like that?

 

[shelly_belly]

The CO2 comes from the air horn connected to the CO2 bottle/regulator (just outside of the picture). The trigger is rubber-banded in the full on position and the flow is adjusted by the regulator. I stick the racking cane down in the carboy about several inches from the bottom to begin with and adjust it as the carboy empties. The other end of the racking cane tubing has a 1/4" threaded fitting so it fits either a ball lock or pin lock beverage out disconnect. On the pin lock kegs without a pressure relief valve (as in the picture) I just stick a gas disconnect on to allow the keg to vent. After I took the picture I stuck a sandwich baggie over the gas disconnect to catch any overflow (visual Full indicator).

Absolutely no kind of stirring or rousing using this method.

The thing I like most about this way is that usually the carboy is in the chest freezer for a cold crash and I can push it to a keg from the freezer without having to lift it out first. This will be even more beneficial when I move up to 10 gal batches and sanke kegs.

I also do this with glass carboys. I just take it nice and slow. Usually if I get too fast, the lid will just pop off of the carboy.

Also in the picture is 5 gals of muscadine wine from 2009 and 1 gal of honeysuckle wine from this past Mother's Day, sitting atop of my diy cigar box stir plate.