Apartment kegging

[bernerbrau]

Well if I have to get the CO2 tank anyway, I should probably just force-carbonate What's there to that? Just higher pressure? Or does it inject CO2 at serving time? Sorry if I'm repeating noob questions here.

And doesn't a picnic tap forgo the need for CO2 to serve? I never joined a fraternity, so I barely know my way around a keg

 

[davesrose]

So, to be clear, keg-conditioning still requires a CO2 tank? There goes my harebrained money-saving scheme

Most people do it the way I and bradsul say. You also normally use the CO2 tank to serve the beer....some people elect to naturally carb to save more CO2. But, you can cask your beer: that system doesn't rely on a CO2 system at all. Cask systems can use a hand pump, and they're supposed to be naturally carbonated. But because there's not as much CO2, they don't last as long as keg systems....and they're normally served at a higher temperature to help with the lower carbonation levels.

 

[davesrose]

Well if I have to get the CO2 tank anyway, I should probably just force-carbonate What's there to that? Just higher pressure? Or does it inject CO2 at serving time? Sorry if I'm repeating noob questions here.

I force carb because it's much faster and I can get to drinking my beer much quicker!!!! So what if it uses more CO2. I still seem to go through quite a few cornies before I need to get it refilled for around $14. Anyway, it's pretty easy to do: after you put your beer in your keg and seal it up...purge your headspace at around 5 PSI. Then adjust your PSI to 30. Some people shake the keg around....some people don't. If you really want immediately carbed beer, shake the holy bajesus out of the keg for 5 minutes. I'm a bit more lazy then that, so I keep it at 30 PSI for a day. I tend to agitate it a couple of times during that day. Then when 24 hours has passed, you then put your PSI to serving pressure. And that pressure is a little different for each setup....but typical CO2 serving pressure in our setups is 5-10 PSI.

And doesn't a picnic tap forgo the need for CO2 to serve? I never joined a fraternity, so I barely know my way around a keg

I wasn't into frats either. And I was already a beer snob, so it was only a few times when I drew from a tap. With those setups, they have a hand pump to build up enough air pressure to serve the beer.

 

[bernerbrau]

Will the yeasties continue to improve the beer even under 30 PSI?

 

[bradsul]

One thing to keep in mind with force carbonating is that it only carbonates the beer faster. Carbonated green beer is still green beer.

 

[davesrose]

Will the yeasties continue to improve the beer even under 30 PSI?

Well by the time I'm carbing my beer, it's already cold enough for all yeasties to be dormant. I personally like crash cooling the beer the day before. Then I rack to the keg, trying not to get any yeast sediment. But sometimes I do....so they do get kicked up while I'm carbonating. So the first pint you pull after carbonating might be cloudy or have hop particles in there. But once the keg is set at its serving PSI, those yeasties settle on the bottom and away from the out tube....so then your beer gets crystal clear. And the nice thing about bottling from a force carbed keg is that when you present your home brewed bottles, they won't have any yeasties on the bottom (so you don't have to explain all about decanting or give away any special yeast strain you want to keep for yourself)

 

[bernerbrau]

One thing to keep in mind with force carbonating is that it only carbonates the beer faster. Carbonated green beer is still green beer.

My stout's been in the fermenter for a month. I daresay it's ready for a sip or two.

 

[eschatz]

I say put your kegorator out on the deck and just cover it. Go with picnic taps so you don't have any problems with towers or anything like that and you'll stay fine until you get a bigger place. I brew in an apartment and I lost my kitchen table a long time ago. My kegorator now resides there. Gotta sacrifise if you want to be an apartment brewer!