First Time Kegging NEIPA

[Benighted]

Hey everyone, I am about ready to keg my hazy NEIPA in the next few days and I was wondering what is a good way to go about it. This is my first time kegging and I understand that oxidizing NEIPA can result in a brown mess with vegetable, faded hop aroma so I am trying to avoid it if at all possible.
I was planning on just purging the keg with c02 and racking either through the ball valve on my chapman univessel or with a racking cane. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Upthewazzu]

You've got the right idea. I fill the keg with sanitizer and push it out to purge with CO2. Then rack directly from the spigot via gravity into the "out" post. The "in" post is connected to a tube so pressure can escape.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]I was planning on just purging the keg with c02 and racking either through the ball valve on my chapman univessel or with a racking cane. [...]

If by "with CO2" you mean simply flushing the keg with gas, that's not going to do the job well.

@Upthewazzu's suggestion is a good one: totally fill the keg with no-rinse sanitizer (eg: Star San) to overflowing through the PRV, making sure both dip tubes are filled (pop their poppets once the keg is filled) then hook your gas to the In post and push the sanitizer out the Out post. And before filling, be sure the long dip tube end is properly located in its well at the bottom of the keg...

Cheers!

 

[Benighted]

You've got the right idea. I fill the keg with sanitizer and push it out to purge with CO2. Then rack directly from the spigot via gravity into the "out" post. The "in" post is connected to a tube so pressure can escape.

Thanks for the awesome advice! Any chance you might be able to direct me to a youtube video showing this process?

 

[WBB]

I would like to see as well. I’m going to transfer from a 7g anvil fermenter. And I’m trying to minimize oxygen infiltration.

I was going to fill with star San through the main opening all the way to the top. Then seal up up the keg. Then attach a co2 tank to the in side and a picnic tap to the out side. Set the co2 to about 10lbs and drain the star San through the picnic tap into a bucket to save for later use.

Once star San is drained, the keg will basically be filled with co2.

So now what? Attach a sanitized hose from the spigot on the fermenter to the the out side of the keg? Then let gravity do its thing? Do I attach anything to the in side of the keg?

 

[day_trippr]

If you merely fill to the "top" through the lid opening then put the lid in place without adding more fluid, there'll be ounces of air trapped under the lid. If you want to get that air out you need to keep filling so the over-flow is through the PRV (and even then you need to rock the keg to work the last bits out - or invert the keg).

In any case, to fill the keg you'd run a purged line from your fermentor to the keg Out post, then either lock the PRV open, or better, run a line from the keg In post into a small vessel of water, and let the keg vent through that, preventing any O2 from sneaking through the open PRV. Bonus is if you over-fill the keg the extra will end up in the small vessel instead of drenching the keg...

Cheers!

 

[Benighted]

If you merely fill to the "top" through the lid opening then put the lid in place without adding more fluid, there'll be ounces of air trapped under the lid. If you want to get that air out you need to keep filling so the over-flow is through the PRV (and even then you need to rock the keg to work the last bits out - or invert the keg).

In any case, to fill the keg you'd run a purged line from your fermentor to the keg Out post, then either lock the PRV open, or better, run a line from the keg In post into a small vessel of water, and let the keg vent through that, preventing any O2 from sneaking through the open PRV. Bonus is if you over-fill the keg the extra will end up in the small vessel instead of drenching the keg...

Cheers!

You've got the right idea. I fill the keg with sanitizer and push it out to purge with CO2. Then rack directly from the spigot via gravity into the "out" post. The "in" post is connected to a tube so pressure can escape.

So... I botched this pretty bad. I filled the keg to overflowing with starsan, I then pressurized it to about 10psi. As soon as I connected the liquid disconnect to my fermenter and popped it on the post it shot c02 into my fermenter which bubbled through the beer. I then connected the gas with a tube onto the gas post and all the c02 shot straight out of the keg. I then tried to open my ball valve on my fermenter and it clogged up with the massive amount of hops I dry hopped with. I ended up just shooting c02 into the keg and racking down into the keg on top of the c02... I'm sure I will have a murky brown oxidized mess in a week or so but it was the only option I saw at the time lol.