It's Kegging time 2022

[ben 10]

On 10/13/2022 at 4:17 AM, stquinto said:

he reckons it would come unstuck after a year otherwise 

Mine hasn't

[ben 10]

On 10/13/2022 at 4:17 AM, stquinto said:

Nearly there on the keezer.

Looks great

[stquinto]

3 hours ago, beach_life said:

Mine hasn't

That's good to know. Anyway, I'll be sticking it down today, leave the lid on with some weights on. Then get the gas in etc. Should be ready by Monday I reckon...

[Classic Brewing Co]

6 minutes ago, stquinto said:

That's good to know. Anyway, I'll be sticking it down today, leave the lid on with some weights on. Then get the gas in etc. Should be ready by Monday I reckon...

Don't forget the air hole for breathing Stquinta, I can see you spending a lot of time in there & of course you may need a pillow & a blanket.

The Coffin 

[iBooz2]

13 minutes ago, stquinto said:

That's good to know. Anyway, I'll be sticking it down today, leave the lid on with some weights on. Then get the gas in etc. Should be ready by Monday I reckon...

What adhesive are you using @stquinto ?  Here in kangaroo land Sikka 11FC would be the best option.  Very fast cure and very flexible.  You could even use it as a hinge between two sheets of thick glass say in a shower screen or entry door situation, thats how good this stuff is.

Good job with it so far, you have done well and I look forward to seeing finished keezer.

Edited October 14, 2022 by iBooz2

[Shamus O'Sean]

13 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

That sounds logical Shamus, I knew my expression with the Dirty Batch routine wouldn't be met favourably however I guess it comes down to what method brewer choices to use, as Al says with correct sanitisation procedures it should work fine.

Certainly not being critical of your position on dirty batches.  Just saying it can be done, if you are careful.  Your approach of mostly using brand new yeast each brew is less risky.  Many ways to the top of the mountain, hey.

[stquinto]

On 10/14/2022 at 10:49 AM, iBooz2 said:

What adhesive are you using @stquinto ?  Here in kangaroo land Sikka 11FC would be the best option.  Very fast cure and very flexible.  You could even use it as a hinge between two sheets of thick glass say in a shower screen or entry door situation, thats how good this stuff is.

Good job with it so far, you have done well and I look forward to seeing finished keezer.

I found this one. I had to open the bottom of the tube and spread it over with a stick

I’ll get onto the rest tomorrow, 24 hours is the drying time apparently. A lot of gas and beer lines to sort out too, and fix up the inkbird and the pc fans

 

[stquinto]

Kegging time for my Old Perc clone. This time I put finings directly into the keg, as per a link @ozdevil posted. Should get a full 19l plus a few bottles. Should let it sit for a few weeks, it’s a “mid-strength” brew (5.8%) after all

[Classic Brewing Co]

Oh, the joys of kegging, how good it is to just walk over to the Kegerator or in my case an old fridge converted to one & pour yourself a brew. We all have to bottle a few for various reasons but once you learn the basics it makes bottling full time look like a joke, yes, I did it for many years but there is no way I could ever go back. 

I have just budgeted for 2 more kegs/lines, a Grain Mill & I am going to visit an LBHS & grab a 25kg bag of Coopers Ale & another, not quite sure yet, any suggestions?

It is time to fire up my BrewZilla & chuck the can opener.

Cheers & Beers.

 

 

[Shamus O'Sean]

3 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Oh, the joys of kegging, how good it is to just walk over to the Kegerator or in my case an old fridge converted to one & pour yourself a brew. We all have to bottle a few for various reasons but once you learn the basics it makes bottling full time look like a joke, yes, I did it for many years but there is no way I could ever go back. 

I have just budgeted for 2 more kegs/lines, a Grain Mill & I am going to visit an LBHS & grab a 25kg bag of Coopers Ale & another, not quite sure yet, any suggestions?

It is time to fire up my BrewZilla & chuck the can opener.

Cheers & Beers.

 

 

Hi Phil, I started with a bag of Pale Ale Malt and a Pilsner.  My next two bags will be another Ale Malt of some sort and a Wheat Malt.  I still have 15kg of Pilsner already.

[Classic Brewing Co]

1 hour ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Hi Phil, I started with a bag of Pale Ale Malt and a Pilsner.  My next two bags will be another Ale Malt of some sort and a Wheat Malt.  I still have 15kg of Pilsner already.

That sounds good Shamus, I think that would be the way to go, thanks.

[iBooz2]

20 minutes ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

That sounds good Shamus, I think that would be the way to go, thanks.

Phil, you will not use much wheat malt, say 250 g per batch so I would buy that in small lots, maybe a 4 kg bag.  If you are going to get a 25 kg bag or two I suggest the Coopers Premium Pale Malt and something a bit darker EBC say a bag of Coopers Premium Ale malt or a 25 kg bag of MO.  You can get the specialty malts in small quantities from your LHBS and mill them as required for your recipes.

I know you like Pale Ales so a couple of 25 kg bags of a much used type of base malts for your pale ales and then some smaller buys of wheat malt and light crystal malt that is for sure.  Better than having a 25 kg bag of wheat malt sitting there for a year.  After you have those few combos you will be well on your way to 10 batches or more of Aussie Pale Ales.

Edited October 18, 2022 by iBooz2

[ozdevil]

6 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

Phil, you will not use much wheat malt, say 250 g per batch so I would buy that in small lots, maybe a 4 kg bag.  If you are going to get a 25 kg bag or two I suggest the Coopers Premium Pale Malt and something a bit darker EBC say a bag of Coopers Premium Ale malt or a 25 kg bag of MO.  You can get the specialty malts in small quantities from your LHBS and mill them as required for your recipes.

I know you like Pale Ales so a couple of 25 kg bags of a much used type of base malts for your pale ales and then some smaller buys of wheat malt and light crystal malt that is for sure.  Better than having a 25 kg bag of wheat malt sitting there for a year.  After you have those few combos you will be well on your way to 10 batches or more of Aussie Pale Ales.

@Classic Brewing Co  I have to agree with Al on this ,     specialty malts  we are only using very small quantities and the bulk of our  grain bill   is your base malt  .   

Marris otter  very good   grain to work with   a great all round grain   not only can use it in pales   you can us it on a few other styles as well  

i also love gladfield Ale  malt myself    


even uncracked grain  goes off   and the amount  of specialty grain  we tend to use in a recipes doesn't make sense to purchase in 25kg sack fulls     

 

[Classic Brewing Co]

9 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

Phil, you will not use much wheat malt, say 250 g per batch so I would buy that in small lots, maybe a 4 kg bag.  If you are going to get a 25 kg bag or two I suggest the Coopers Premium Pale Malt and something a bit darker EBC say a bag of Coopers Premium Ale malt or a 25 kg bag of MO.  You can get the specialty malts in small quantities from your LHBS and mill them as required for your recipes.

I know you like Pale Ales so a couple of 25 kg bags of a much used type of base malts for your pale ales and then some smaller buys of wheat malt and light crystal malt that is for sure.  Better than having a 25 kg bag of wheat malt sitting there for a year.  After you have those few combos you will be well on your way to 10 batches or more of Aussie Pale Ales.

Thanks Al, that makes sense, a 2kk bag of base malt a few 4-5 bags of MO/Gladfield etc.

I can see that being a better way to go. Cheers.

[Classic Brewing Co]

3 hours ago, ozdevil said:

@Classic Brewing Co  I have to agree with Al on this ,     specialty malts  we are only using very small quantities and the bulk of our  grain bill   is your base malt  .   

Marris otter  very good   grain to work with   a great all round grain   not only can use it in pales   you can us it on a few other styles as well  

i also love gladfield Ale  malt myself    


even uncracked grain  goes off   and the amount  of specialty grain  we tend to use in a recipes doesn't make sense to purchase in 25kg sack fulls     

 

Thanks guys I can see it would be better to have smaller bags with a variety rather than stock up with the big bags.

[Red devil 44]

Kegged my pressure fermented (15PSI) AG Hoegaarden Clone today via closed transfer, was a double batch so will whack one on tap and keep the other for Xmas, jagged 3 tallies with left overs too for mates. 
 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Fair point about the Wheat Malt @iBooz2 and @ozdevil.  I was thinking more about my own brewing habits where I tend to do a wheat beer of some type every 5 or 6 batches.  So I use 2-3kg of Wheat Malt in those batches.  Up until now I bought my Wheat Malt in 2 -10kg lots.  At those amounts, I am paying in per kg rates.  As we all know, a 25kg bag is much cheaper per kg.  Hence why I am choosing to get a 25kg bag of Wheat Malt this time around.  If you just plan on adding 150g of Wheat Malt to pale ales and the like it is not a great idea to buy a 25kg bag.

[stquinto]

Admittedly a bottling issue, but got my Coopers Vintage 22 bottled up (with the bronze tops, and 39 bottles in the box below). The Union Flag capped ones are the Old Perc clone from last week, as is the keg

 

[iBooz2]

Kegged 2 kegs of LL today after bottling 24 x 345 ml stubbies out of the 58 L Kegmenter on Wednesday as travellers.  The ABV of this one came in a little high for my liking at 5.5 % ABV so will have to pace myself when consuming ha ha.

Got two cubes of a followup batch of LL ready to tip in on top of the DL yeast trub which will be done a little later this evening.

[iBooz2]

On 10/19/2022 at 6:44 PM, Red devil 44 said:

Kegged my pressure fermented (15PSI) AG Hoegaarden Clone today via closed transfer, was a double batch so will whack one on tap and keep the other for Xmas, jagged 3 tallies with left overs too for mates. 

@Red devil 44 Is that the first or second keg being filled in the pic?  Presuming your kegs have been pre-purged and are full of CO2 you should not need to connect the gas bottle to the FV as the 15 psi in there and gravity will push it into the keg due to height difference, well the first keg anyway.  When doing the second keg and the siphon effect looses momentum then yes maybe a squirt of gas to the FV in order to finish off the last bit.   Saves your gas.

[Red devil 44]

8 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

@Red devil 44 Is that the first or second keg being filled in the pic?  Presuming your kegs have been pre-purged and are full of CO2 you should not need to connect the gas bottle to the FV as the 15 psi in there and gravity will push it into the keg due to height difference, well the first keg anyway.  When doing the second keg and the siphon effect looses momentum then yes maybe a squirt of gas to the FV in order to finish off the last bit.   Saves your gas.

Hey @iBooz2, I did turn the CO2 off halfway through as I didn’t really need it. 
Yes kegs were all emptied of sanitiser and pre-purged with CO2. 
Only problem I had was the “beer out” line clogged up with some hop matter, so had to use the siphon. to finish off the second keg. 
‘Going to buy a Stainless Fermenter next. 
Cheers for your advice mate, all taken on board. 

[iBooz2]

18 minutes ago, Red devil 44 said:

Hey @iBooz2, I did turn the CO2 off halfway through as I didn’t really need it. 
Yes kegs were all emptied of sanitiser and pre-purged with CO2. 
Only problem I had was the “beer out” line clogged up with some hop matter, so had to use the siphon. to finish off the second keg. 
‘Going to buy a Stainless Fermenter next. 
Cheers for your advice mate, all taken on board. 

No worries there, thanks @Red devil 44  Arh the old hop matter in the beer line problem. 

I don't have a little mesh filter on my pickup line in the Fermzilla but I do have one on the pickup line in the SS Kegmenter as obviously you cannot see what is going on.  I have a gas line with a liquid connect on it (black) especially for jobs like this when the pickup line gets clogged, temporarily connect that to the beer line, give it a little squirt of CO2 and puff the clog back out of the line and back into the FV.  Then normal gravity flow continues after that.

Edited October 21, 2022 by iBooz2

[Red devil 44]

40 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

No worries there, thanks @Red devil 44  Arh the old hop matter in the beer line problem. 

I don't have a little mesh filter on my pickup line in the Fermzilla but I do have one on the pickup line in the SS Kegmenter as obviously you cannot see what is going on.  I have a gas line with a liquid connect on it (black) especially for jobs like this when the pickup line gets clogged, temporarily connect that to the beer line, give it a little squirt of CO2 and puff the clog back out of the line and back into the FV.  Then normal gravity flow continues after that.

Yeah I have made up the same thing for those occasions @iBooz2( liquid disconnects) 

[Classic Brewing Co]

My nephew sent these photos of his Keezer, this is one of the Aldi Freezers that Muzzy/Malter/ ???? who know's what next posted last week. It doesn't look too bad as he is quite a handyman/tradie - better than his Uncle !!

[RDT2]

31 minutes ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

My nephew sent these photos of his Keezer, this is one of the Aldi Freezers that Muzzy/Malter/ ???? who know's what next posted last week. It doesn't look too bad as he is quite a handyman/tradie - better than his Uncle !!

Gas bottle in the box is a good idea