Just Bought a Keg ....now I have questions

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kicary

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1. I bought a 5gal soda keg with ball locks. 6 feet of tube, party/picnic spout, 16g Co2 charger and dorm fridge.

So here are my questions....here we go!

1. Is 6 feet of tubing enough to cut down on foaming if I am only using a 16g Co2 charger and not a 5/10lb Co2 canister?

2. Do I need to condition my keg before using it for beer AND do I need to use a different keg for lighter beers and darker beers etc?

3. How long do I need to leave my beer in the keg, once I have primed it, before I can put it into the fridge?

4. Once the beer is ready to go into the fridge, when do I charge it with Co2? My understanding is that the 16g Co2 charger I have is only used to push the beer through the tube and out of the spout...it is not used to "carbonate" beer.

5. DO I need to purge the Co2 in the tank when I am not using the keg?
 
1. In my experience the longer the unrefrigerated tubing the more foam. Use less tubing.
2. No need to condition just clean it with Oxyfree or some other cleaner then sanitize prior to use. remove valves and dip tubes in between uses and clean really good and the same keg should work for all beers. after all they used to have soda in them.
3. I tranfer my beer straight from the fermenter to the keg, purg the o2, put it under pressure and dirrectly into the fridge.
4. charge it once its in the keg. your little co2 charger will NOT do the trick for carbing, you can use priming sugar in the keg. In that case follow the rule of thumb for bottles and refidgerate once carbed.
5. LEAVE THE CO2! youll end up with flat beer.

Cheers and good luck
 
What he said. Just a few additional thoughts:
1) This is fixable later. If you have 6 feet, start with 6 feet. Adjust from there if you need to.

3) You will be sugar priming your beer. This will take approximately 2 weeks. Rack the beer onto your priming sugar. Use your CO2 canister to put pressure into the keg (30psi would be ideal, not sure what your setup is capable of). Then, take it off the CO2. This is just to "seal" up the o-rings on your keg.

4) You aren't "charging" it with CO2. This isn't soda. The beer will have CO2 disolved in it (after sugar priming). You will use the CO2 to push the beer out, and replace the empty space in the keg with more CO2. If there is more CO2 pressure in the keg than the amount of disolved CO2 in the beer (at a certain temperature), you will be carbonating your beer. If there is less, the beer will lose carbonation to fill the space in the bottle. Have you ever had a 2-liter soda bottle and drank half of it? You come back a day later and the bottle has pressure in it? Some of the CO2 has left the soda and pressurized that bottle. That is what would happen to your beer. In theory, if your beer is perfectly carbed and your CO2 is at the perfect pressure, you will be neither adding nor removing CO2 from your beer.

5) You never want to purge this until your beer is gone.
 
The tubing needs to be 3/16". 6 ft is only going to work if you carbonate at 10-12 psi and chill to under 38F. Otherwise, you may need longer. The co2 thing you have won't carbonate so you will need sugar for that. You need to find out what the pressure is in that thing. If it is more than in the keg, then it will drain down in a few days when the beer absorbs it. I think that device is for serving and not storage so I would unplug it when not pushing beer. The size of the co2 tank makes no difference. The tubing must be chilled as well and not hanging out at room temp.
 
You guys are AWESOME!! Thanks for all the great advice and tips. When I get the "hang" of this kegging process I will buy into a 5lb Co2 canister and roll that way. All I can find here in the way of Co2 canisters run between 125.00 - 160.00 filled. At one local home brew store it was a $150.00 buy in, then $20 per charge. Are these prices reasonable??
 
The tubing needs to be 3/16". 6 ft is only going to work if you carbonate at 10-12 psi and chill to under 38F. Otherwise, you may need longer. The co2 thing you have won't carbonate so you will need sugar for that. You need to find out what the pressure is in that thing. If it is more than in the keg, then it will drain down in a few days when the beer absorbs it. I think that device is for serving and not storage so I would unplug it when not pushing beer. The size of the co2 tank makes no difference. The tubing must be chilled as well and not hanging out at room temp.

The tubing I have is 3/16" and my fridge is chilled to a nice 36F. If I go lower on the temp will this affect the life of the beer?? I have a pic-nic/party tap and until I can afford one of the nice outside taps, I will keep this current set up inside the fridge.

Do I need to buy different tube when the current keg is dry and I switch over to a different beer, or can I wash/sanitize the current tube and reuse?
 
You guys are AWESOME!! Thanks for all the great advice and tips. When I get the "hang" of this kegging process I will buy into a 5lb Co2 canister and roll that way. All I can find here in the way of Co2 canisters run between 125.00 - 160.00 filled. At one local home brew store it was a $150.00 buy in, then $20 per charge. Are these prices reasonable??

The fill price is probably reasonable, but check around welding supply places. The new price is almost 3x what you can get it online for.

Here's an aluminum 5lb for $56 http://www.beveragefactory.com/draftbeer/tanks/co2/C5.shtml

I bought a 10lb from them for $85 and then simply do tank exchanges at Matheson (or Amerigas) for $30 so I never have to worry about the hydro date.
 
Do I need to buy different tube when the current keg is dry and I switch over to a different beer, or can I wash/sanitize the current tube and reuse?

In my kegerator I clean my lines/faucets when I clean a keg (usually after it blows). First I fill the dirty keg with 2 gallons of warm water and oxyclean, shake it up and then hook up the gas for about 10 seconds to give it enough pressure to push the liquid but not fully fill the mostly empty keg. I then simply open the tap and let it run the oxyclean solution into a bucket.

Every other time or so I'll drop a "bottle brush" sized for my faucet into the bucket to soak in the oxyclean, then use it on the tap when the keg is drained.

Next I take the keg back into the house and rinse it with fresh water until all the oxyclean residue is gone, then I'll give it another 5 second shot of co2 and push the clean water through the lines. From there I'll decide if I'm going to pull the keg apart and really clean the dip tube, posts, poppets etc. Normally I'm kinda lazy and will only do this every second or third time the keg is used unless it's a really hoppy or strong beer.

Lastly I'll throw another 2-3 gal of water into the keg, and add Star San. shake it up and roll it around for 3-5 min so all interior surfaces get exposed, then throw it on the gas for 5-10 seconds and run off about a gallon through the lines and tap. I leave the rest until I'm ready to keg a new beer so the keg stays sanitized.

This obviously only works if you have at least a 5lb co2 tank as you'll run a 16oz charger dry. You can buy a kit for cleaning lines, but I'd rather spend that cash on other gear.
 
The tubing I have is 3/16" and my fridge is chilled to a nice 36F. If I go lower on the temp will this affect the life of the beer?? I have a pic-nic/party tap and until I can afford one of the nice outside taps, I will keep this current set up inside the fridge.

Do I need to buy different tube when the current keg is dry and I switch over to a different beer, or can I wash/sanitize the current tube and reuse?

Lots of people here keep there beer at 33-35F and it lasts plenty long. The tubing will last a while. I would just suggest keeping it full all the time. When I am done with a keg, I will leave some beer in the line along with co2 and leave it on the floor of the keezer. Then I either plug it into a new keg and flush the old stuff out or clean it when I'm cleaning the keg. After cleaning, I then leave star san in it full until it is needed again. The key imo is leaving air out of it to cause bacteria to grow.
 
Lots of people here keep there beer at 33-35F and it lasts plenty long. The tubing will last a while. I would just suggest keeping it full all the time. When I am done with a keg, I will leave some beer in the line along with co2 and leave it on the floor of the keezer. Then I either plug it into a new keg and flush the old stuff out or clean it when I'm cleaning the keg. After cleaning, I then leave star san in it full until it is needed again. The key imo is leaving air out of it to cause bacteria to grow.

WOW, I would have never thought to do all that. Great advice..thanks!!
 
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