Just finished my keezer build. I know very little about kegging and have so many questions. Is there a link or website u can recommend where I can do some research? Figured that would be way easier than posting question after question.
New to kegging need help
- Thread starter bendog15
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dontpanic13
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You can check youtube as well as there are plenty of great videos that go over all the information that you would need. Brad Smtih (BeerSmith) also did a podcast about it which has a lot of good information.
Northern Brewer has a Google video on kegging
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Take everything you find on the internet with a grain of salt. While there is a lot of good information available, there is also a distressing amount of bad information and advice. Two specific areas to be careful with are carbonation methods and beer line lengths, since taking the wrong advice on these often leads to problems (with the accompanying threads on HBT about how to solve the problems.)
A lot of folks on the net recommend agitating (shaking rolling) kegs at high CO2 pressures in order to carbonate faster. This method is fundamentally uncontrollable, and often leads to problems with over carbonated kegs. I recommend against these methods. I recommend either the "set and forget" method (the safest), or no-agitation burst carbing at elevated pressures for a limited time.
The simplest is the "set and forget" method. Fill your keg, purge the headspace with CO2 five or so times, then set the pressure based on the chart for the carb level you want for the temperature at which you will store and serve the beer, put the beer in the cooler and wait. Beer will a little carbed in a week, mostly carbed in two weeks, and fully carbed in three weeks.
If you are in more of a hurry, you can "burst" carb using higher pressure. Timing is important for this method in order to prevent over carbonation, but if you follow the timing, you will be ok. Fill, purge and put the keg in the cooler at 30 psi. If the beer is already cold, leave it at 30 psi for 36 hours, and then reduce to the chart pressure. If the beer starts at room temp, leave it at 30 psi for 48 hours (since it will absorb CO2 slower until it is cold) before turning the pressure down. Beer will be drinkable in 3 - 4 days, although it might take longer than that to fully clarify.
However you carbonate your beer, you should store and serve it at the chart pressure for the carb level and temperature. To get good pours, your beer lines need to be long enough the drop the pressure to almost zero at the tap (due to flow resistance in the line.) This works much better than reducing the pressure to serve with lines that are too short. If you forget to turn the pressure back up after serving, your beer will lose carbonation over time. To determine the line length you need, use this calculator. Most other on-line calculators get the science wrong and are crap (they tend to produce lines that are too short, which can cause foaming problems.) A good rule of thumb is you need one foot of 3/16" beer line for every psi.
Brew on
A lot of folks on the net recommend agitating (shaking rolling) kegs at high CO2 pressures in order to carbonate faster. This method is fundamentally uncontrollable, and often leads to problems with over carbonated kegs. I recommend against these methods. I recommend either the "set and forget" method (the safest), or no-agitation burst carbing at elevated pressures for a limited time.
The simplest is the "set and forget" method. Fill your keg, purge the headspace with CO2 five or so times, then set the pressure based on the chart for the carb level you want for the temperature at which you will store and serve the beer, put the beer in the cooler and wait. Beer will a little carbed in a week, mostly carbed in two weeks, and fully carbed in three weeks.
If you are in more of a hurry, you can "burst" carb using higher pressure. Timing is important for this method in order to prevent over carbonation, but if you follow the timing, you will be ok. Fill, purge and put the keg in the cooler at 30 psi. If the beer is already cold, leave it at 30 psi for 36 hours, and then reduce to the chart pressure. If the beer starts at room temp, leave it at 30 psi for 48 hours (since it will absorb CO2 slower until it is cold) before turning the pressure down. Beer will be drinkable in 3 - 4 days, although it might take longer than that to fully clarify.
However you carbonate your beer, you should store and serve it at the chart pressure for the carb level and temperature. To get good pours, your beer lines need to be long enough the drop the pressure to almost zero at the tap (due to flow resistance in the line.) This works much better than reducing the pressure to serve with lines that are too short. If you forget to turn the pressure back up after serving, your beer will lose carbonation over time. To determine the line length you need, use this calculator. Most other on-line calculators get the science wrong and are crap (they tend to produce lines that are too short, which can cause foaming problems.) A good rule of thumb is you need one foot of 3/16" beer line for every psi.
Brew on
