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hoplobster

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I am fresh off of the Michigan Brewer's Guild Summer Beer Festival and I helped pour beer for a local brewery and I really want to start kegging, but now I have a few questions, and I couldn't exactly find the answers I am looking for...

I would probably want to let the beer condition in the keg using priming sugar rather than force carbing and I will probably end up with 2-3 kegs on tap.

1) After racking to the keg and adding the sugar as normal, I know it needs to sit in a warmer area ala bottle conditioning, but does the keg need to be under any pressure while conditioning? I've read something about letting it sit on ~5 psi, but does it have to be connected to the co2 tank the whole time? How exactly does one keg condition?

2) I will have 2-3 kegs on not long after I begin kegging and I've found two things that look like they will help me accomplish this. An air distributer or a tee.

To sort of combine these questions... I assume the air distributer would be what I want and if a keg is conditioning naturally, could I just blast it with ~5 psi of co2 and then close the valve until it's ready to serve? If neither of these items are what I need, what should I be looking for instead?

Thanks!
 
To sort of combine these questions... I assume the air distributer would be what I want and if a keg is conditioning naturally, could I just blast it with ~5 psi of co2 and then close the valve until it's ready to serve? If neither of these items are what I need, what should I be looking for instead?

After filling and priming your keg, hit it with a high pressure shot of Co2 (I use 30psi) just to seat the lid. It doesn't take much gas to do this, since there is so little headspace and liquid won't compress. After that, there is no need to apply gas until you're ready to serve.

Yeah, you'll want some kind of manifold or splitter to distribute your gas to each keg. It can be as simple as tee-fittings, but most of us prefer a manifold or splitter with individual shut-off valves for each feed. One-way check valves are good to have as well, which are built into some valves and also available separately.
 
Pretty much the point of blasting the keg with CO2 is
1. seat the lid
2. drive off the O2 by pulling the relieve valve for a few seconds
you will want a manifold to distribute the gas with T's to shut off individual kegs, I actually used pvc for my manifold so it can be really cheap if you want it to be.

You wont need to leave the keg on the system after you drive off the O2 just set it somewhere where you can keep it at room temp and wait for it to carb, after a few weeks you should be able to put it in your kegerator and tap it.
 
Ok, so just to make sure I've got this: The keg is full and primed; hit it with some gas, pull the relief valve to purge the O2, disconnect and let it carb like normal?

Easy enough. Thanks!
 
Ok, so just to make sure I've got this: The keg is full and primed; hit it with some gas, pull the relief valve to purge the O2, disconnect and let it carb like normal?

That should do it. After purging, I like to give it another shot of Co2, just to make sure the lid stays seated.
 
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