How Many KEGS?

[cheezydemon3]

I only serve from kegs, am I missing something?

 

[samc]

yes

I serve, primary, dry hop, store StarSan, clean the taps with them and admire my reflection in them (JK).

 

[2lflat4]

I have 3 1/2 barrel sanke kegs with the top cut off for the brew house, 1 1/2 barrel sanke keg for primary, and 4 cornelius kegs for secondary and serving.

 

[cheezydemon3]

admire reflection......hmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Eisendrath]

got 5 flowing in the keezer, 1 empty in the lineup, 1 reserved for rum swizzles.
primary and secondary in carboys.
I do bottle a few from each batch for traveling.

 

[cheezydemon3]

I have 3 on gas. That is it. I ferment in buckets.

 

[Cape Brewing]

Ferment in sankes and carboys and have... I dunno... 23/24... somewhere in there... cornies. I have six lines at my bar and every time our club does a bulk corny buy we get 'em for about $15 so I usually grab a few for the hell of it. It's not that uncommon for folks to have a pretty big pile of 'em. There are a few of us in our club that have that many.

... and I'm sure there are a large number of folks here on HBT that have me beat by a lot.

 

[remilard]

I have 30ish. I can only serve I guess around 8 at a time but I don't want to have to drink all of one beer before I can brew the next.

I also secondary and serve in them but also dry hop in them which then involves pushing to a new keg to serve.

 

[Thanatos69]

I'm still new to the kegging thing but I love it over bottling for sure.

Like everything else I do, I go all out. I started off with a single ball lock setup and 2 weeks later sold it to a friend. I then bought a 4 ball lock setup with dual regulators (one for sodas).

This past weekend I found a local guy selling off an old stock of pin locks for $10 each, so I bought 11 of them. I'm selling 2 of the pin locks to the friend who bought my first setup and I'll keep the rest. That will give me 60 gallons of potential capacity with a cleaner/sanitation keg for cleaning my beer lines. Hooray beer!

To prove the overkill factor I live by, I'm planning on building a small (4ftx6ft) walk in cooler in my garage to store everything in. I'm then running beer lines through a 4 inch conduit to my living room for the taps I'll be installing.

I've got a nice antique buffet that will act as the bar with a 4 inch deep box behind the buffet to mount the tap towers to.

Throw in a homebuilt liquid line cooler for the beer lines and tap box and I should have a decent setup with 6 active taps (4 beer, 2 soda). That will leave me 6 kegs as refills.

 

[rycov]

i only have one for now. but wish i had more, and intend to acquire more as i go and as money allows (i picked i use kegs in a manner not listed, i guess because my situation wasn't up there)

 

[cheezydemon3]

I guess I wondered if an all keg set-up is ideal.

 

[rycov]

hell yeah. why not? no offense to bottlers. bottles are sweet too. but kegging is so easy. no worrying when it will be carbed, did i add enough priming sugar? did i add to much? plus no putting any corn sugar in my beer is a big plus for me. (i don't tasted the corn sugar, i just don't want to put it in there)

 

[r8rphan]

I have a single kettle system of one keggle and one cooler tun.. I have another sanke keg I can use still out in the shop.. Will eventually probably turn it into a mash tun at some point..

I have 5 cornys, but want 4 more for my current 3 tap kegerator... That will give me three to drink on, six in waiting (conditioning/aging/carbonating)...

Eventually, I want a second kegerator with three perlicks on it too.. Of course that means an additional 9 cornys for a total of 18...

With two batches fermenting in carboys, and two batches in buckets, that would be.. well.. umm... plenty of beer....

 

[cheezydemon3]

More is better.........I am thinking maybe a primary with a decent amount chopped off of the dip tube...........

Does hop debris and trub clog a tube?

It seems like NOTHIN BUT kegs would have a drawback......but really....hot wort in a bucket bothers me, stainless would be a lot better, and could actually be COOLED prior to wort, cooling the wort measureably ..........hmmmmmmmm....

 

[muse435]

I naturally carb in mine

 

[kpr121]

and could actually be COOLED prior to wort, cooling the wort measureably ..........hmmmmmmmm....

This is a potentially excellent idea! What if you had your corny sitting in bucket of ice, and you slowly poured (from a siphon or valve) your hot wort over the steel (inside the corny) so that the heat could be transferred to the ice. I would think this would work much better if you could add water to the ice, but then you would probably have some floatation issues.

I'm thinking you could use one of those aeration cones to splash the wort into the entire interior wall to increase surface area...

hmmm....

 

[cheezydemon3]

I naturally carb in mine

Do you close up befeore fermentation is done? I was going to naturally carb mine, but I've found that burst carbing requires no shaking or rolling and carbs up in 3 days. Fermentation under pressure is interesting me though.

This is a potentially excellent idea! What if you had your corny sitting in bucket of ice, and you slowly poured (from a siphon or valve) your hot wort over the steel (inside the corny) so that the heat could be transferred to the ice. I would think this would work much better if you could add water to the ice, but then you would probably have some floatation issues.

I'm thinking you could use one of that aeration cones to splash the wort into the entire interior wall to increase surface area...

hmmm....

I am thinking of having the keg in the fridge or freezer, and then into ice. Water could be added to the ice as the keg fills.

 

[humann_brewing]

kegs are great for transfers, store starsan air tight, bulk age beer in etc....

 

[cheezydemon3]

Agreed. Glad I posted this. I now have more desire than ever to get to an all keg system.

 

[kpr121]

Agreed. Glad I posted this. I now have more desire than ever to get to an all keg system.

Be sure to let us know how the chilling works out if you try it!

 

[WazzuBrew]

I have 3 on gas. That is it. I ferment in buckets.

I'm with you. Same here.

 

[kpr121]

My answer is I SECONDARY in kegs, and then chill and serve from them.

I have one (1) 1/2 bbl keggle, one (1) 1/4 bbl keggle, five (5) corny kegs, and one 1/6 bbl sanke (havent used it for anything yet-thought it would be nice to have if I was taking beer to an event that had only sanke hookups).

My kegerator has 2 taps and I also have 2 picnic taps that I can hook up if need be. I generally try (keyword TRY) to have 2 on tap and a third waiting. Then I usually have one corny sitting at room temp for conditioning as a secondary, and the fifth is usually empty and needs cleaned.

I am bad at letting my newly emptied kegs sit without being cleaned. Out of sight, out of mind I suppose. If I dont open the top, its not terribly caked on, but still a pain.

 

[motobrewer]

i only have 3! i want more. can't seem to find em cheap around here.

 

[cheezydemon3]

My answer is I SECONDARY in kegs, and then chill and serve from them.

I have one (1) 1/2 bbl keggle, one (1) 1/4 bbl keggle, five (5) corny kegs, and one 1/6 bbl sanke (havent used it for anything yet-thought it would be nice to have if I was taking beer to an event that had only sanke hookups).

My kegerator has 2 taps and I also have 2 picnic taps that I can hook up if need be. I generally try (keyword TRY) to have 2 on tap and a third waiting. Then I usually have one corny sitting at room temp for conditioning as a secondary, and the fifth is usually empty and needs cleaned.

I am bad at letting my newly emptied kegs sit without being cleaned. Out of sight, out of mind I suppose. If I dont open the top, its not terribly caked on, but still a pain.

Thanks for the well thought out post.

A sealed keg is going to stay sanitary. I guess it can get a little caked and crusty, although not infected.

where are the cheap kegs.

 

[kpr121]

Thanks for the well thought out post.

A sealed keg is going to stay sanitary. I guess it can get a little caked and crusty, although not infected.

where are the cheap kegs.

Yepp, when I have a beer that needs racked to a keg, and one of the empties is/was of the same or similar style, I consider just racking directly to the empty corny without cleaning, although the two times I’ve done this I worried so much that it would have been easier on my stress levels to just clean and sanitize the damn thing (yes I worry about my beer a lot, who here doesn’t?). I only did that with kegs that were sitting empty for a couple days in the kegerator, not sitting for a month in my basement.

 

[Randar]

I primary and secondary in Sanke kegs (I have 6 total) and serve from cornies (I have 16 total). I still have at least half a dozen carboys in various sizes I use for wine/mead or split batch experiments.

I clean with a bucket of pbw or oxy and a pump with a spear into the keg/cornie/carboy.

 

[Randar]

Does hop debris and trub clog a tube?

Hop debris will definitely clog a poppet moreso than the dip tube. Even from pellets the hop debris can and will get clogged in the spring of the poppet. If you dry hop in the corny you need to use a sanitized mesh bag to contain any larger particles.

 

[Randar]

I am bad at letting my newly emptied kegs sit without being cleaned. Out of sight, out of mind I suppose. If I dont open the top, its not terribly caked on, but still a pain.

I will collect several Sanke/Cornies/Carboys before going through a cleaning session. I just keep them sealed up, under pressure if possible and that is good enough for me.

 

[Skarekrough]

This Fall I took the plunge and did a keezer and a 4 tap setup. I'd been brewing off and on for the past ten years, the off part usually the result of hating having to bottle.

This past weekend the Missus mentioned that I still had all the bottles in storage.

I put an ad up in CraigsList and within 24 hours 12 cases of bottles were given away for a minor sum.

I can't seem to find a flaw in there at all....I hated bottling then....I can't see how that would ever change.

I'm running 5 kegs. I'll keg after the secondary and will force carb or use sugar depending on my mood or the time span I know the beer needs to stop tasting so green.

In the future I'll likely get another three or five more kegs.

 

[jmf143]

I'm still new to the kegging thing but I love it over bottling for sure.

Like everything else I do, I go all out. I started off with a single ball lock setup and 2 weeks later sold it to a friend. I then bought a 4 ball lock setup with dual regulators (one for sodas).

I started out with a double ball lock setup and sold it 1 week later to a stripper. I then bought a 6 ball lock setup with triple regulators.

This past weekend I found a local guy selling off an old stock of pin locks for $10 each, so I bought 11 of them. I'm selling 2 of the pin locks to the friend who bought my first setup and I'll keep the rest. That will give me 60 gallons of potential capacity with a cleaner/sanitation keg for cleaning my beer lines. Hooray beer!

Four days ago I found a local guy selling off new pin locks for $8 each, so I bought 20 of them. I'm giving 6 of the pin locks to the friend who bought my first setup and I'll keep the rest. That will give me 130 gallons of potential capacity with a cleaner/sanitation keg for cleaning my beer lines. Hooray me!

To prove the overkill factor I live by, I'm planning on building a small (4ftx6ft) walk in cooler in my garage to store everything in. I'm then running beer lines through a 4 inch conduit to my living room for the taps I'll be installing.

Same here, but mine will be bigger (6ftx8ft) and 2 stories. I'll have 8 taps, located in various rooms of my house with unshelled peanuts and flat panel HD TVs within easy reach.

I've got a nice antique buffet that will act as the bar with a 4 inch deep box behind the buffet to mount the tap towers to.

I don't go for any of that old stuff - make mine new I always say.

Throw in a homebuilt liquid line cooler for the beer lines and tap box and I should have a decent setup with 6 active taps (4 beer, 2 soda). That will leave me 6 kegs as refills.

Ok - you got me there. Sounds like you have a nice setup going.

 

[Randar]

Same here, but mine will be bigger (6ftx8ft) and 2 stories. I'll have 8 taps, located in various rooms of my house with unshelled peanuts and flat panel HD TVs within easy reach.

You'd probably be better off finding a glycol setup than trying to cool (and keep insulated) that many cubic feet of air...

 

[Walker]

I naturally carb in mine

+1

rack and add priming solution, and then seal them up for a couple weeks before tapping them.

 

[Thanatos69]

Thanks, you had me going with the one-up-manship thing.

I most likely won't start on the walk-in cooler for a few months as I've got several projects I need to start on soon that will take priority.

I've got a couple of cars that need some work (track prepping one, fuel pump for the other), replace the heater in my hot tub and probably buying a boat (24ft cabin cruiser) for the summer.

Once those are out of the way I'll get started on the cooler, or knowing my attention span, I'll decide on a keezer or something else.

 

[cheezydemon3]

+1

rack and add priming solution, and then seal them up for a couple weeks before tapping them.

Do you do that to conserve CO2?

I was planning to do that, but burst carbing has worked so well and uses almost no CO2.

I see the additional benefit of a couple more weeks warm conditioning, but the new priming sugar re-introduces the "green" stage.

 

[Walker]

Do you do that to conserve CO2?

I was planning to do that, but burst carbing has worked so well and uses almost no CO2.

I see the additional benefit of a couple more weeks warm conditioning, but the new priming sugar re-introduces the "green" stage.

I do it primarily because my kegerator is small. I can only put two kegs in it. I'd rather not have one of those two kegs be "unavailable" while I wait for carbonation. No, I don't want to bother with things like burst carbing or shaking or anything. My regulator is hard to get to (tank is inside the kegerator), so messing with it at all is a pain in the ass. It's set at 11psi and I don't want to touch it. SO, I can take up one half of the kegerator space for 2 weeks while I wait for something to carb up set-and-forget style, or I can set a keg next to the kegerator with sugar in it for 2 weeks.

IMO, using the sugar does not re-start you on a "green" phase of the beer. There is VERY little fermentation going on during conditioning, and there is no additional yeast growth necessary (the beer is already highly populated with yeast), so it's really nothing.

It does save CO2 in the tank to use the sugar, which is nice, but is not the real reason I do it. In my ideal world, I would have another dorm fridge, tank, and regulator in the garage. I would throw freshly kegged batches in there and force carb set-and-forget style. This would give me two weeks of cold conditioning, which gets rid of any chill haze that I might get in a batch.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Nice hat.

I may switch to that method when I have more kegs than can fit in my fridge (4 will fit, but I have only 3).

It would be nice to just let kegs warm condition and carbonate, and then be able to just hook them up and dispense when cooled.

I am not one for shaking either, I hook my kegs up to gas, pressurize top 53 psi and unhook them from gas.

24 hours later I hook them up and pressurize to 20 and unhook.(no gassing off or "waste")


The next day they are perfectly carbed.

 

[muse435]

Do you do that to conserve CO2?

I was planning to do that, but burst carbing has worked so well and uses almost no CO2.

I see the additional benefit of a couple more weeks warm conditioning, but the new priming sugar re-introduces the "green" stage.

For me it comes down to space in the keezer. plus i figure it forces me to let the beer age, once its in the keg its hard to keep my hands off of the tap.

 

[cheezydemon3]

You speak true Muse!

I definitely need some more kegs.