Need day of homebrew competition advice

[jjfabiszak]

I hope I can make this short and sweet so I don't lose half of you before the end of the post ha!

I have a hoppy american wheat in my secondary which will be ready to keg monday 4/9/12. I have my first homebrew competition with my club CHAOS. In which the winner will go on to compete in the competition held by lagunitas in chicago.

My question is on what to do as far as carbonating the corny. At the club I will have to bring my own regulator and co2 tank and will either be serving through a jockey box or throwing the corny keg in a ice bucket.

Should I force carbonate on monday 4/9/12 and keep at the recommended 42 degrees? It will be about a 45 minute drive to the club building. I am worried about having it go from being cold to being shaken up on the drive there to than sittin and getting warm.

I have never been to or entered a competition before. I know this will be judged by members and non members from a score card.

To top everything off this will be my first time kegging. Any advice at all is greatly encouraged.

Cheers

Jake Fabiszak
Chicago il

 

[JuanMoore]

When is the competition?

 

[Yooper]

I'd probably carb up the keg, let it settle, and then "jump" it to a new keg the day before the competiton so you don't resuspend all kinds of trub when you move the keg.

Hopefully the competition is at least three weeks away so you have time to carb it up nicely, let it settle and clear.

 

[JuanMoore]

I'd probably carb up the keg, let it settle, and then "jump" it to a new keg the day before the competiton so you don't resuspend all kinds of trub when you move the keg.

Hopefully the competition is at least three weeks away so you have time to carb it up nicely, let it settle and clear.

Agreed on all counts. A quick google search leads me to believe that the comp is probably on the 14th though. If that's the case he'll only have a couple days and need to burst carb it. Hopefully he can bring it to the location early enough that the keg has at least a few hours to settle before it's served.

 

[jjfabiszak]

the comp is the 14th so 4 days away, I put it in my keezer yesterday in my carboy to crash it and plan on kegging it today. I was thinking about shooting it with about 15-20 psi and doing the whole agitate thing for five minutes or so than putting it in the keezer and seeing if i need to do it again tomorrow. Ill definitly get to the comp/club a couple hours before it starts.

Once I get there should I burp it and than set it at serving psi??

 

[jjfabiszak]

i never thought about jumping it to another keg before the comp,to reduce sediment from moving, thats a great idea

I'd probably carb up the keg, let it settle, and then "jump" it to a new keg the day before the competiton so you don't resuspend all kinds of trub when you move the keg.

Hopefully the competition is at least three weeks away so you have time to carb it up nicely, let it settle and clear.

 

[rawlus]

Because you are rushing it there won't be hard and fast recommendations here, burst carbing is an inexact science. You will have to wing it, do what you think needs to be done to get it to the right carb level quickly, be sensitive about overshooting your target (a real possibility) as it will be difficult to correct an overcarb situation once you are at the event. You can dial serving pressure back and bleed off some headspace pressure but that's not going to uncarbonate a beer right away, it takes time.

 

[JuanMoore]

the comp is the 14th so 4 days away, I put it in my keezer yesterday in my carboy to crash it and plan on kegging it today. I was thinking about shooting it with about 15-20 psi and doing the whole agitate thing for five minutes or so than putting it in the keezer and seeing if i need to do it again tomorrow. Ill definitly get to the comp/club a couple hours before it starts.

Once I get there should I burp it and than set it at serving psi??

I would reccommend against shaking the keg while applying anything over serving pressure, it's just way too easy to overcarb that way. I would either set it at 35 psi for 24 hrs and then turn it down to serving pressure, or set it at serving pressure and shake it until you don't hear anymore gas entering the keg, and then shake a little more just to be sure. The third option would be to buy a carbonation stone and attach it to your gas diptube with a couple feet of tubing, and just keep it at serving pressure.

Then the night before the comp I'd jump it to a clean keg to remove whatever sediment has formed so it doesn't get stired up on the ride. If you're not serving through a jockey box, you'll want about 10' of 3/16" ID beer line to serve it through.

 

[jjfabiszak]

despite conflicting interest this is what I ended up doing.

tuesday morning early I put the carboy in the keezer to cool down to we will say 40 degrees. After work on wednesday I (did all the sanitize steps but will save you the details) I than filled the tank with about 10 psi for a little and burped it to remove all the oxygen.

I than pitched into the keg left about 2 inches or closer to the co2 inlet valve. Set my regulator to 20psi and opened the valve quick to get a good seal on the lid. turned off the valve, burped the keg about 4 times turning on and off the co2 to remove all the oxygen.

I than changed quick disconnect adapters so I can carb through the liquid out valve. So I set 20 psi on the regulator opened up the valve and waited for the tank to stop filling the keg, disconnected the co2 and rolled on the ground back and forth for a couple minutes. Set connected the adapter and repeated maybe 3 more times total.

then when I finished I set the corny in the keezer changed the quick disconnect back to the co2 inlet and set the regulator at 13 psi ( its an american wheat) let it sit for over 24 hours. Also I left the liquid out connector off, so just the co2 in adapter is connected.

yesterday I tried some and was very happy with the outcome, it was about maybe 50-70% of the way there I think. I was worried I would be way under carbed. So yesterday I did the same thing as the day before, except i think i didnt change the adapaters around. rolled it around for a minute or 2 and filled twice.

Set it back in the keezer and a couple hours later I did it again. Than I let it set overnight with the liquid out disconnected and the co2 on connected at 13psi.

We will see how it tastes tonight.. Very nervous

also just and FYI my O.G was 1.035 and F.G was 1.004 (im not to happy about the o.g. was hoping for a 4.6 ABV instead got a 4.06 ;( oh well it tastes amazing still nice and hoppy so im happy

I would reccommend against shaking the keg while applying anything over serving pressure, it's just way too easy to overcarb that way. I would either set it at 35 psi for 24 hrs and then turn it down to serving pressure, or set it at serving pressure and shake it until you don't hear anymore gas entering the keg, and then shake a little more just to be sure. The third option would be to buy a carbonation stone and attach it to your gas diptube with a couple feet of tubing, and just keep it at serving pressure.

Then the night before the comp I'd jump it to a clean keg to remove whatever sediment has formed so it doesn't get stired up on the ride. If you're not serving through a jockey box, you'll want about 10' of 3/16" ID beer line to serve it through.

 

[idahobrew]

Let us know how you do and good luck.

 

[jjfabiszak]

just to update everybody, My brew turned out great, carb level compared to everybody elses was on point! so thanks for the advice on that. also I took 8th place out of 15. Everybody there said the really loved it and expected me to place.

However it was a shootout style competition. So it was not to style or anything. The one I didnt like about it was that everybodys name was next to their brew. so it came down to sadly whoever brought the most friends with to vote ha. But as far as 1st through 3rd they were my favorite. 4-7 were sketchy

thanks for the guidance to all who replied