Newbie keg question

[Iceman6409]

Hello all. I recently came across a free mini fridge that I am going to make into a kegerator. First and foremost I know very very little if anything about kegging. However I am looking at buying a keg from Adventures in Homebrewing. In the description I see this "No Manual Pressure Relief Valve". Being a complete kegging newbie what does this mean?

 

[Eh_Modern_Drunkard]

It means there isn't the easy valve and ring on top of the keg for easy pressure relief or venting. My guess would be it's a pinlock, or pinlock converted to ball lock.
Just hazarding a guess though.
You're still able to vent the pressure though, you'll just need some form of small tool or bit to push the valve open. Seems a bit tedious to me, but I keg a fair bit and that just sounds frustrating haha
I usually just spend a few extra dollars and get the ball locks w/pressure relief valves.

 

[doug293cz]

Hello all. I recently came across a free mini fridge that I am going to make into a kegerator. First and foremost I know very very little if anything about kegging. However I am looking at buying a keg from Adventures in Homebrewing. In the description I see this "No Manual Pressure Relief Valve". Being a complete kegging newbie what does this mean?

It means that in order to vent the pressure (to purge O2, take the lid off, etc.), you have to press on the gas-in poppet. You could also try (and probably will at some point) to vent by pressing on the liquid-out poppet. You won't do this more than once unless you are a slow learner.

Most ball lock kegs come with gas release valve with a pull ring mounted in the lid (the ones I got from AIH did anyway.) They are much more convenient than having to remove the gas QD and press the poppet. You can buy replacement lids with pressure relief valves.

Brew on

 

[Iceman6409]

Ok. And why and how often would I be relieving pressure?

 

[LandoLincoln]

Well, when you fill a keg you want to purge the air in the top, so you fill the keg then put the CO2 on until the regulator stops making noise, then you purge the air via relief valve (or gas poppet) and then repeat the process 2-6 times, depending on how paranoid you are of oxidation.

And if you use a bottling gun to bottle beer from your kegs you'll want to get the psi of the keg to zero, then put the gas on at about 3 psi.

 

[m00ps]

You definitely WANT the relief valve. It lets you vent the keg which comes in handy for a number of reasons:
- purging the keg of oxygen to eliminate exygenation
- lowering the pressure (assuming you start to carb it at room temp and 30psi) when you stick it in the fridge
- prevent beers from accidently getting overcarbed
- dial in your carbonation level
- verify the regulator is hooked up properly to the keg (when you pull the valve, the pressure gauge will swing down a bit then back up

I use the valves all the damn time. But there's really no need to relieve pressure once you have it carbed up properly

 

[LandoLincoln]

And you need to relieve the pressure when you go to clean the keg. Won't be able to open the lid if there's 12 psi of pressure in there.