New to the Keg and everything else

[Guigsy]

Hello-

Received a Kegerator for Christmas and currently have Sam Winter on tap...but I brewed a robust porter in the middle of December and finally ordered an empty corny keg and am ready to keg my 2nd batch (...first batch left a lot to be desired and was bottled...)

1. This was originally made to be a blackberry or raspberry porter and still may be. I have not added the fruit yet. What is the best way to do this using fresh fruit? The wort has been in the primary since Dec 12 and will probably not use a Secondary, rather just transfer to the corny.

2. What steps need to be taken prior to kegging? Upon receiving the keg, I released the pressure valve to release all pressure (obviously)...Once the keg is sanitized, should I hook up the tank and push some C02 into the keg first? Or just siphon the wort into the keg?

3. Forced carbonation - is this a suggested method? Like I've said, I am a complete newbie. I decided one day I wanted to brew beer and 2 days later I did it. I am really lacking in homebrew knowledge so most of my direction comes from youtube videos or hitting up my coworkers with questions...hehe

4. One more thing, I have a store bought mini-fridge type kegerator. When I ordered my corny from northernbrewer, I order the Keg, and the 2 disconnects. Is that all I need? Is the current tubing I have for the Sam Winter (american sankey) suffice?

 

[tentacles]

Never done a fruit beer, can't help you there.

I would clean the keg, then sanitize - maybe those guys shipped a good clean keg and maybe they just rinsed it out, do you want to stake your beer on it? It really doesn't take that long, and there's no better time to start the habit than now. You don't want to find out that some bug has made it's nest in the pickup tube by dispensing him into your mug.

I don't see any reason not to force carbonate using one method or another. It's certainly faster than priming, and you leave the extra gunk out of your keg (there will still be SOME).

The tubing you have should be fine. You will probably want some hose clamps to keep things in place, though.

 

[shafferpilot]

Any fruit addition will start fermentation up again, and you'll have to age it again. Don't leave your beer on the fruit for more than a week, so take that into consideration as you make a plan. Fresh fruit has wild yeast and bacteria on/in it, so you'll have to come up with a way to kill them. Otherwise, canned fruit is already sanitized (usually by pasteurization) so that solves that problem and reduces the complexity of the process. Also, fruit extracts are available at most homebrew shops as they are used in wine-making.

 

[TheJadedDog]

1. Personally I wouldn't add fruit to a keg, it'll gum up the works and leave a lot of debris at the bottom of the keg (which is where the dip tube draws from). I'd go to secondary if you want to add the fruit.

2. I never bother purging my keg before racking. The beer will displace the O2 in there, then, once it's full and you have the lid on, you can pressurize and purge the headspace.

3. Most keggers force carb. There are several different methods; try searching to get some great discussion on the shake method vs the set-it-and-forget it method.

4. Not sure without more details on the kegerator you've got.