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It's Kegging Time 2019


Titan

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This is always a shit time of year for kegs running out before the next ones are ready, even actually being at work through it (til Friday) I suspect the levels have dropped more than usual with the public holidays and nights before them. 

However, one will be ready to keg probably next Wednesday, with the other a week after that. It'll be more interesting to see how well production keeps up with consumption once I go back to work in early February. I suspect it will be just fine. 

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9 hours ago, Red devil 44 said:

Also Shamus my FG came in at 1008, how did you go ?

Looking forward to this one, smells great.

The jury is out on this one, for me.  My FG was 1.014.

The aroma of mine was a bit, not so good.

I reckon it will teach me for buying a kit too close to its best before date.  I think the M44 yeast was too old.  I believe that the dry hops smelled just a bit old too.  I did get a regular pleasant sweet caramelly aroma while I was bottling.  I have had beers that smelled not quite right turn out to be fine once carbed and aged.

I will report back in a couple of weeks.  Let us know how yours goes.

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10 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

The jury is out on this one, for me.  My FG was 1.014.

The aroma of mine was a bit, not so good.

I reckon it will teach me for buying a kit too close to its best before date.  I think the M44 yeast was too old.  I believe that the dry hops smelled just a bit old too.  I did get a regular pleasant sweet caramelly aroma while I was bottling.  I have had beers that smelled not quite right turn out to be fine once carbed and aged.

I will report back in a couple of weeks.  Let us know how yours goes.

Will do mate, mine is all kegged & stored away, I’ll put it on at some stage within the next month or so.

cheers 

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14 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I did get a regular pleasant sweet caramelly aroma while I was bottling.

Good luck with it Shamus.  Hopefully time in the bottle will cure any ills.

Interested in the carmelly aroma - is there some relationship to diacetyl here or is that a somewhat different aroma?

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2 hours ago, Bearded Burbler said:

Good luck with it Shamus.  Hopefully time in the bottle will cure any ills.

Interested in the carmelly aroma - is there some relationship to diacetyl here or is that a somewhat different aroma?

Thanks BB

I have not smelled diacetyl yet, but it supposed to be buttered popcorn-like.  Plus, I like popcorn and caramel.  The aroma was more like a jersey caramel lolly.  Not buttered popcorn.

I am pretty sure it was not diacetyl.  The brew was in the fermenter for 14 days, so plenty of time for a diacetyl rest.  Dry hopped about day 5.  Temp raise 20°C to 22°C around day 6.  SG stable about day 9.  Cold crashed plus added isinglass day 10, added polyclar day 11, bottled day 14.

I am still hopeful for this brew.

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I finally got all the bits and pieces together to have a go at kegging. Just a couple of kegs and picnic taps. As a practice run I've just carbonated some water and all seems to be going well. 

Unfortunately, I've only got the one fridge at this point and it's my fermentation fridge. I'm hoping to pick up a chest freezer off Gumtree but it can be a little slow around my parts. It's going to be a juggle until then.

I'm wondering what the effect of taking the water keg out of the fridge will be in terms of carbonation. I'm not planning on using it until I can get it back in the fridge after I have fermented and kegged my next beer. Do I just disconnect it and hook it back up to the same pressure when I'm ready to go again?

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Okie doke gang. First of what will many kegging questions. 
 

ive hooked everything up to give her a test before i actually fill my kegs with beer. Got some water carbing up as I type haha. 
 

No leaks as tested with soapy solution etc, however I’ve noticed over time the gauge on the left has dropped down.... I’m guessing this is because the gas has cooled down in the fridge????

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57 minutes ago, MitchBastard said:

Okie doke gang. First of what will many kegging questions.

ive hooked everything up to give her a test before i actually fill my kegs with beer. Got some water carbing up as I type haha.

No leaks as tested with soapy solution etc, however I’ve noticed over time the gauge on the left has dropped down.... I’m guessing this is because the gas has cooled down in the fridge????

Mate I am only answering to be sociable as I am keg newbie.

But the Gas regulator has both the pressure in the tank and the pressure on the delivery line...  probably best to stay away from left and right.  One is pressure in tank. One is delivery pressure.

The delivery PSI may drop as the keg pressure is built up initially - but what you have is a pressure regulator - and what you set in the keg - should stay constant i.e. it is a Regulator.

But mate am happy to stay out of it - just I guess letting you know a small bit of inf - and that your message did come through : )

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1 hour ago, MitchBastard said:

Okie doke gang. First of what will many kegging questions. 
 

ive hooked everything up to give her a test before i actually fill my kegs with beer. Got some water carbing up as I type haha. 
 

No leaks as tested with soapy solution etc, however I’ve noticed over time the gauge on the left has dropped down.... I’m guessing this is because the gas has cooled down in the fridge????

Hey MB the gauge on the left is Cylinder Pressure, the one on the right is pressure in your keg as BB said. Your cylinder pressure should stay constant, your delivery pressure may fluctuate on initial gassing, but will settle down to a constant pressure. If your gauge for Cylinder Pressure is dropping then you are running out of gas in your Cylinder, if your Cylinder is inside your Kegerator/keezer you will get a lower reading on your Cyl pressure, hope this helps 😃

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If it's the high pressure gauge (i.e.the cylinder pressure) then it will drop if the thing is in the fridge due to the lower temperature. Mine is outside the fridge, but I notice some variation between summer and winter. 

I kegged the red ale today, also put the surplus into another 19L keg that already has a few litres of ESB in it. Decided to turn the kegerator off for a few hours and leave it open to defrost although it wasn't too bad anyway. Just turned it back on and got the red carbing up at 45psi. I'll turn the gas off about 3 tomorrow arvo, then bleed and reconnect at serving pressure when I go to bed. Early one tomorrow night, gotta be up early Sunday for the first game of golf for the year. I'll probably try a glass when I get home from that. 

Edited by Otto Von Blotto
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4 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

If it's the high pressure gauge (i.e.the cylinder pressure) then it will drop if the thing is in the fridge due to the lower temperature. Mine is outside the fridge, but I notice some variation between summer and winter. 

I kegged the red ale today, also put the surplus into another 19L keg that already has a few litres of ESB in it. Decided to turn the kegerator off for a few hours and leave it open to defrost although it wasn't too bad anyway. Just turned it back on and got the red carbing up at 45psi. I'll turn the gas off about 3 tomorrow arvo, then bleed and reconnect at serving pressure when I go to bed. Early one tomorrow night, gotta be up early Sunday for the first game of golf for the year. I'll probably try a glass when I get home from that. 

Is it an Irish Red Ale mate ?

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Thanks @Bearded Burbler @Red devil 44 & @Otto Von Blotto 

ive has a few strong ales this afternoon and couldn’t for the life of me articulate what the cylinder pressure gauge was except for the round thing on the left. 
 

figured the pressure would drop due to temp change. It’s stayed at the same spot for a few hours now but just wanted to make sure Incase I had to hunt for a leak. 
 

@Otto Von Blotto is 45psi your go to for a faster carb? Some forum readings had me pointed toward 30psi for 30 hrs then serving Pressure after that ???

 

ps, golf the best way to ruin a good walk.

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9 minutes ago, MitchBastard said:

Thanks @Bearded Burbler @Red devil 44 & @Otto Von Blotto

 

@Otto Von Blotto is 45psi your go to for a faster carb? Some forum readings had me pointed toward 30psi for 30 hrs then serving Pressure after that ???

 

ps, golf the best way to ruin a good walk.

It is if you play like crap I guess 😂

I usually use 45psi yeah, or thereabouts. It doesn't really matter what the pressure is though, as long as it's turned off at the right time to prevent it over carbonating. This obviously doesn't apply to using serving pressure to carbonate it, which I also do at times. 

I settled on it largely because of my work hours. A lot of times I'm kegging beer midweek which generally happens around mid-late morning when I'm on my break. Then I just turn off the gas before going to work the next morning, which is about 20ish hours later. By the time I'm home on my break it's had the time to rest and absorb most of the pressure left in the headspace, so at some point during that time it's bled and put back on serving pressure and ready to drink when I'm home again in the evening. It may not be fully carbonated yet but it's done enough to enjoy it. Another day or two and it's fine. 

Edited by Otto Von Blotto
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32 minutes ago, MitchBastard said:

ive has a few strong ales this afternoon and couldn’t for the life of me articulate what the cylinder pressure gauge was except for the round thing on the left. 

As a keg newbie... I think that 12-14PSI is probably a pretty reasonable setting for pour on the delivery side guage - and what I have used for a long term for example 2-4 week conditioning exercise... from what I have learnt on this site....  12-14 PSI is good.

 

 

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Im having an issue with one of my kegs. If I pour a beer from keg 3 on Sunday it works fine. Then today I poured myself one but nothing coming from the tap. So I reseated the gas connector and it worked. I didn’t lose any gas but are these disconnects known to slip off ?

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1 minute ago, PaddyBrew2 said:

Im having an issue with one of my kegs. If I pour a beer from keg 3 on Sunday it works fine. Then today I poured myself one but nothing coming from the tap. So I reseated the gas connector and it worked. I didn’t lose any gas but are these disconnects known to slip off ?

Mate I am a keg newbie.   But all of my line connects are hard-core crimped lines.

They are connected to ball-connects to the top of the kegs - the keg posts.

I guess that if your gas connect was not quite seated properly onto your gas post - then maybe there was not a good delivery of C02 to the manifold (the point where the gas comes in from the cylinder and then is distributed across the kegs in the Kegerator)... but if the lines are all crimped--- then the gas should not be easily leaking - and your soapy water test should confirm.

 

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