How much did the dogfish 90 set you back? Is it a 1/6 barrel?
Yea it was a 1/6 barrel ... $119 + $105 for deposit
I am sad to announce that my initial keezer + kegging ( I realize I wasn't actually kegging my own beer ... ) experience was an epic disaster ...
Brought the DF90 home on Friday around 5pm for a get together with my neighbors ... connected everything together, had a massive air leak ... found I forgot to add a washer in the CO2 coupler connection ... fixed that up quick
Next pulled the tap but beer only trickled out ... at this point I had a couple of my neighbors help me figure it out as they wanted their DF90 LDO ... one is a nuclear engineer and the other is a high profile accountant ... finally figured it was the regulator and had to adjust the knob ...
OK, we can now adjust the pressure at will and we are ready to drink massive amounts of cold, hoppy, draft DF90 ... here we go!! ... almost completely all foam ...
I had read this was probable, but had been *extremely* careful in not jostling the keg as much as possible on its car ride home ... I had it tucked in tight in the front seat ... anyway, I thought I had read to just let the beer relax for the first hour after tapping, but the Nuclear Engineer said when they tapped kegs up at the fire station, they just tapped & drank straight away ... we filled a couple of growlers to see if we just needed to "run off" the foam ... seems like it wasn't getting better ... I cap the growlers and put them in the keezer ...
So we decide to let it sit for a while ... crack some Dogfish 60 bottles and enjoy hour 80 degree sun and delicious BBQ ... come back an hour later and try the draft again ... still mostly foam, and it's coming out fast & furious ... the growlers however have settled right down and are now half full with beer ... we pour those and are ready to embrace the sweet nectar of DF90 ... however, it's mostly flattish ... it tastes good, but it's close to flat ...
So I hit the internet ... people say the CO2 needs 24 hours to become soluble in the beer ( is that correct? I've forgotten the terminology now ) ... and they say crank the PSI to 15 for 24 hours and then simmer down to 8ish ... so I do that and we drink the rest of the growlers which is now ice cold from the keezer ( I keep the temp control at 40 +- 3 ) ... the growlers are good, but flat
I come down the next morning, willing to drink a draft DF90 for breakfast if it's flowing ok, but it's not ... in fact, it's not flowing at all ... all that's coming out of the tap is air ... I open up the keezer and look inside .... son of a ***** ... all of my beer is floating on the bottom of the keezer ... I pick up the keg and it weighs 15 lbs, as opposed to the 65ish when it was full ... there is zero beer in it
Son of a ***** X2 ... I pull the tap again and there's a noticeable air leak in the beer line where it connects to the keg ... I believe this is one of the lines I ad hoc'ed together ... it seemed fine at 8 PSI, and it seemed fine in the first few minutes I monitored it at 15 PSI ... but alas ... there was puddles of beer on top of the keg and foaming at this point in the beer line
I've already ordered a pre-assembled beer line and I ordered a new pre-assembled air line just for good measure
I'm not opposed to being laughed, snickered & pointed at ... in fact I encourage it if it will make my next experience 1000% times better
Suggestions?
5lb CO2
1/6 barrel DF90
Initially 8 PSI
Turned up to 15 PSI
Temp control +-3 @ 40
CO2 tank + regulator currently inside the keezer