Its Kegging Time - 2024

[ben 10]

1 hour ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

What's happening Beachy??

Only me drinking beer, 3 + hour round trip for gas. Really not worth kegging

[Classic Brewing Co]

7 minutes ago, ben 10 said:

Only me drinking beer, 3 + hour round trip for gas. Really not worth kegging

OK, had me worried, thought you were giving up. 

[Triple B Brewing]

1 hour ago, ben 10 said:

Only me drinking beer, 3 + hour round trip for gas. Really not worth kegging

Jeepers @ben 10 you must be in some kind of paradise if you’re 1.5 hours drive away from any point of gas supply - noice!
Shame there isn’t a local fabricator, hardware or other that you could use for delivery purposes. 
I use BOC.as my supplier, have you thought of speaking with yours to see if there is a local user they already deliver to - just a thought 

[ben 10]

5 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

OK, had me worried, thought you were giving up. 

Ha, nah - all good Phil

[Shamus O'Sean]

Kegged the Dave's Bitter today.

This was the one where I poured the wort onto the yeast cake of my Low Carb Lager that had Low Carb Enzyme added.  The question was whether the enzyme would have an effect on the final gravity of the beer.  @iBooz2 was curious to know as well.  Supposedly the enzyme is only good for the brew it is pitched into.  Well, the Low Carb Lager had a FG of 0.999.  The Dave's Bitter got down to 1.004, which was much lower than the predicted 1.012.  The yeast in question was the Coopers German Lager.  I used it previously in the Coopers Genuine Draught and it got down to 1.014.  On that basis, I think the enzyme still effected the Dave's Lager.  Not a bad thing, but not what I was aiming for.

Also, for those wondering about the effectiveness of Biofine @Aussiekraut, have a look at the picture below.  It is not often that you can see though a whole fermenter.  The dip tube is obvious.  The temperature well down the middle of the FV is clear.  The sticker on the rear left side of the fermenter can be seen.  If not for the condensation on the back of the FV, you could probably see what was through the window behind.

Transfer into the keg is underway

[iBooz2]

14 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

This was the one where I poured the wort onto the yeast cake of my Low Carb Lager that had Low Carb Enzyme added.  The question was whether the enzyme would have an effect on the final gravity of the beer.  @iBooz2 was curious to know as well.  Supposedly the enzyme is only good for the brew it is pitched into.  Well, the Low Carb Lager had a FG of 0.999.  The Dave's Bitter got down to 1.004, which was much lower than the predicted 1.012.  The yeast in question was the Coopers German Lager.  I used it previously in the Coopers Genuine Draught and it got down to 1.014.  On that basis, I think the enzyme still effected the Dave's Lager.  Not a bad thing, but not what I was aiming for.

Thanks for sharing that info @Shamus O'Sean , yes, I suspected the enzymes would have a carry-over effect and I think you have proven that.  I will look at adjusting some of my favourite recipes and maybe using the enzyme to get a lower gravity, same ABV, lower carbs but using slightly less grain.

Bio fine addition looks impressive.  I don't use add other finings but Whirlfloc and find a longer cold crash does what I want.  But good job, well done, as I say impressive.

BTW why are you using CO2 bottled gas for a closed transfer to the keg when you have such a good height difference between the FV and the keg?  I can share a bottle free technique with you if you want.

Edited March 30 by iBooz2

[Shamus O'Sean]

18 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

BTW why are you using CO2 bottled gas for a closed transfer to the keg when you have such a good height difference between the FV and the keg?  I can share a bottle free technique with you if you want.

I am interested in that.

As far as my transfer process goes, here it is. 

• The keg has zero pressure in it. 
• I pressurise the FV to 15 psi (probably more than necessary). 
• Connect gas line to keg gas post. 
• Connect beer line to FV beer post. 
• Connect beer line to keg beer post. 
• Count to 10. 
• Connect gas line to FV gas post.
• Pressure equalises between the FV and the keg.
• Gravity takes care of the rest*.

* Usually.  For the first time ever, this transfer stopped around 14L and again around 16L.  I do not know why.  To get it going, I just let a little gas out via the keg PRV.  That was enough to get the beer flowing.  I think it might have had something to do with the beer flowing very slowly and being partly carbonated.  This caused CO2 bubbles to collect in the keg's beer dip tube.  Once enough gas was in the dip tube, the process stalled.

[iBooz2]

1 hour ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I am interested in that.

Ok, here it is, the iBooz2 closed transfer method.

My CO2 purged kegs are always stored with some pressure in them, just to keep them CO2 purged and not any chance of atmosphere ingress.

The FV has whatever pressure that remains after starting a cold crash at say 15 p.s.i. and finishes several days later at maybe a few p.s.i. so always some small positive pressure in there but usually not much.

• Don’t put any gas into the FV unless it is negative p.s.i.  Save your gas for serving your beers.
• Pull up the PRV on your keg and turn it 90 degrees to hold it open in order to vent any residual keg pressure.
• Connect your pre-purged beer line to the beer outlet post of your FV and then to the beer out post on the keg.
• Beer will start to flow into the keg, the keg will vent of course via the open prv.
• Now sit back, relax, have a home brew, or take a few pics if you want and wait.
• After a while the flow will stall. I see you are using scales so you will see when the transfer has stopped completely.
• What has happened is the vacuum now created inside the FV above its beer has now equalled the siphoning force of the gravity pulling the beer down into the keg, so the process stops.
• Now is the time to get your pre-purged gas line ready and after closing the keg prv to its normal position, connect the gas line to the keg’s gas post and then to the FV’s gas post.
• The flow will resume because you have a good height differential between the FV beer level and the kegs beer level and because the slightly higher CO2 pressure which now exists inside the keg will want to push up and replace the CO2 vacuum which now exists in the FV (until it equalises), thus allowing the beer to flow down into the keg using gravity as your work mate and the circle of flows, closed transfer wise work in your favour.

I have not had any problems with closed transfers using this method even with fairly high carbonated beers that have been cold crashed from 15 p.s.i. so they would be just about fizzed up enough to drink I would think.

Anyway, give my method a crack and see how you go and let me know please.

 

Edited March 30 by iBooz2

[Shamus O'Sean]

21 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

Ok, here it is, the iBooz2 closed transfer method.

My CO2 purged kegs are always stored with some pressure in them, just to keep them CO2 purged and not any chance of atmosphere ingress.

The FV has whatever pressure that remains after starting a cold crash at say 15 p.s.i. and finishes several days later at maybe a few p.s.i. so always some small positive pressure in there but usually not much.

• Don’t put any gas into the FV unless it is negative p.s.i.  Save your gas for serving your beers.
• Pull up the PRV on your keg and turn it 90 degrees to hold it open in order to vent any residual keg pressure.
• Connect your pre-purged beer line to the beer outlet post of your FV and then to the beer out post on the keg.
• Beer will start to flow into the keg, the keg will vent of course via the open prv.
• Now sit back, relax, have a home brew, or take a few pics if you want and wait.
• After a while the flow will stall. I see you are using scales so you will see when the transfer has stopped completely.
• What has happened is the vacuum now created inside the FV above its beer has now equalled the siphoning force of the gravity pulling the beer down into the keg, so the process stops.
• Now is the time to get your pre-purged gas line ready and after closing the keg prv to its normal position, connect the gas line to the keg’s gas post and then to the FV’s gas post.
• The flow will resume because you have a good height differential between the FV beer level and the kegs beer level and because the slightly higher CO2 pressure which now exists inside the keg will want to push up and replace the CO2 vacuum which now exists in the FV (until it equalises), thus allowing the beer to flow down into the keg using gravity as your work mate and the circle of flows, closed transfer wise work in your favour.

I have not had any problems with closed transfers using this method even with fairly high carbonated beers that have been cold crashed from 15 p.s.i. so they would be just about fizzed up enough to drink I would think.

Anyway, give my method a crack and see how you go and let me know please.

 

Thanks for that, AL.  I will definitely give this a go next time I am kegging.  My FV usually only has atmospheric pressure in it because before I keg, I choose to open up the FV to fish out my Pill with some long sanitised tongs.  This is much easier to do when the Pill is in easy reach compared to leaving it in until the FV is emptied.  But I might give up that convenience if your method is better/quicker/cheaper than mine.

[Aussiekraut]

I just watched an interesting video on The Brülosophy Show. The fella throws a little water, sugar and yeast into a keg and lets it do its thing. Then he uses the CO2 for all sorts of things. When the gas is gone, add a little more sugar and off we go again. Of course every now and then you need to clean things but generally, very cheap CO2. I'm considering using one of my 8.5l PET kegs for something like that. 

Edit: I wonder what the alcoholic liquid in there would taste like...

 

Edited April 6 by Aussiekraut

[kmar92]

5 hours ago, Aussiekraut said:

Edit: I wonder what the alcoholic liquid in there would taste like...

 

Not so good I would think. I reckon though that you could distill it to make spirits.

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

3 minutes ago, kmar92 said:

Not so good I would think. I reckon though that you could distill it to make spirits.

was just thinking that is how they do home brew spirits

[Popo the Reprobate]

That's pretty clever.

[Back Brewing]

Yesterday I kegged the COPA that I brewed with Verdant yeast even though it tasted ok the bitterness was lacking I'm sure that adding the last addition to the cube instead of the hop stand will lift the bitterness I'll keep you updated when I brew it in a couple of weeks

[Red devil 44]

Kegging the XPA FWK, straight into the keezer after this. 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Kegged my Mexican Cerveza tonight.  Final gravity was 1.006 and ABV was 5%.  Predicted FG was 1.011.  So I think the enzyme I added to the yeast 3 brews ago is still having an effect.

[Back Brewing]

Kegged my AG Stone and Wood clone today tasting very nice out of the FV

Edited April 18 by Back Brewing

[Red devil 44]

Kegged (Closed Pressure Transfer) the AG American IPA today.

[Aussiekraut]

Fast carbing. Why does it not work for me?

I've tried the 24hrs on 40psi method and it still needs 3-4 days on serving pressure. I tried the shake and roll method feeling really stupid rolling a keg back and forth for half an hour, occasionally picking it up and shaking it. When I pour a beer, it is as flat as it was when it went into the keg. Even what came out of the pressure fermenter at 15psi was flat af. However, 5 days on serving pressure does the job just fine. 

What am I doing wrong? I get jealous when I see people messing about for a bit and getting a fully carbonated beer, literally in minutes. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

1 hour ago, Aussiekraut said:

Fast carbing. Why does it not work for me?

I've tried the 24hrs on 40psi method and it still needs 3-4 days on serving pressure. I tried the shake and roll method feeling really stupid rolling a keg back and forth for half an hour, occasionally picking it up and shaking it. When I pour a beer, it is as flat as it was when it went into the keg. Even what came out of the pressure fermenter at 15psi was flat af. However, 5 days on serving pressure does the job just fine. 

What am I doing wrong? I get jealous when I see people messing about for a bit and getting a fully carbonated beer, literally in minutes. 

I usually find 24-48 hours on 20psi is enough to kickstart the brew & have even been able to drink it however it still needs a few more days at serving temperature & of course in a week it is much better & even more so after another week.

I will be kegging a Stout in a few days, so I am looking forward to tasting it ASAP.

[Shamus O'Sean]

10 hours ago, Aussiekraut said:

Fast carbing. Why does it not work for me?

I've tried the 24hrs on 40psi method and it still needs 3-4 days on serving pressure. I tried the shake and roll method feeling really stupid rolling a keg back and forth for half an hour, occasionally picking it up and shaking it. When I pour a beer, it is as flat as it was when it went into the keg. Even what came out of the pressure fermenter at 15psi was flat af. However, 5 days on serving pressure does the job just fine. 

What am I doing wrong? I get jealous when I see people messing about for a bit and getting a fully carbonated beer, literally in minutes. 

I have never done the rock and roll method, so I cannot comment on that option.

24 hrs at 40psi works for me.  It is not carbonated like a commercial can, but it produces a head and tastes fizzy.  Once I turn it back to 12psi, it does not seem to get fizzier with time.  You have a similar mini-regulator set-up like me.  Do you make sure the mini-reg is at 40psi?

Although I do not think it has any effect on carbonation, but to be specific, after the 24 hours at 40psi, my process is:

• I disconnect the gas disconnect,
• purge the keg of the 40psi,
• turn off the gas line at the manifold,
• purge the gas line,
• turn back the mini-regulator to effectively zero psi
• turn the gas line back on at the manifold,
• adjust the mini-regulator back up to 12psi (my serving pressure), and
• reconnect the gas disconnect
• proceed to serve thy beer

@Classic Brewing Co's 24-48 on 20psi is plausible, especially if he keeps it at 20psi toward the end of that range.  I do not think the pressure/time ratio is linear, but it is not far off.  Hence why twice as long at half the pressure has a similar effect.  I find the same with my half filled kegs.  So for my half filled kegs, I will sometimes do 40psi for 12 hours or 20psi for 24 hours.  It mostly depends on when I will be around or awake to reset the keg back to serving pressure.

I wish you luck with your attempts at the 24 hour fast carb.

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

I sometimes have a similar method @Shamus O'Sean where I use different PSI at X amount of hours. The only difference is I never purge the keg before returning it to serving pressure. I figure why waste all the gas already in there when it can soak into the beer. Like you mentioned how long at what PSI can depend on when I will be around again to attend to it.

[Aussiekraut]

10 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Although I do not think it has any effect on carbonation, but to be specific, after the 24 hours at 40psi, my process is:

• I disconnect the gas disconnect,
• purge the keg of the 40psi,
• turn off the gas line at the manifold,
• purge the gas line,
• turn back the mini-regulator to effectively zero psi
• turn the gas line back on at the manifold,
• adjust the mini-regulator back up to 12psi (my serving pressure), and
• reconnect the gas disconnect
• proceed to serve thy beer

That is what I usually do and the beer is still flat. Sometimes I put a keg into the keezer and crank the gas up to 40, leave it in there for 24 hours and when I check the next day, it is flat. There is a little bit of fizz but no head to write home about. Give it another 3 days and it is fine. Same when I put a keg into a fridge and hook the workshop gas bottle up, nothing, it is still flat.

Watching HomeBrew Network, he tells you how easy it is, just roll the bottle gently back and forth for a few minutes and shake it every now and then and here you go, he pours a fully carbed beer.  What am I doing wrong? I can't figure it out. Normally, I can wait a few days, no biggie but when I give a keg to the father in law for example, it needs to be fully carbed as he only has a SodaStream bottle with regulator and a pluto gun to serve and he can't carb up a keg with that. But for me to carb up the keg at serving pressure takes forever and occupies valuable kegerator/keezer real estate. It's cool when you rock and roll the keg for a while, then shake the hell out of it. You can hear the gas rushing in and all, it just doesn't seem to go into solution as fast as it should. 

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

Sorry to hear that @Aussiekraut every time I have rock and rolled I had the opposite problem and poured ice creams.

[Red devil 44]

On 3/30/2024 at 11:09 PM, iBooz2 said:

Ok, here it is, the iBooz2 closed transfer method.

My CO2 purged kegs are always stored with some pressure in them, just to keep them CO2 purged and not any chance of atmosphere ingress.

The FV has whatever pressure that remains after starting a cold crash at say 15 p.s.i. and finishes several days later at maybe a few p.s.i. so always some small positive pressure in there but usually not much.

• Don’t put any gas into the FV unless it is negative p.s.i.  Save your gas for serving your beers.
• Pull up the PRV on your keg and turn it 90 degrees to hold it open in order to vent any residual keg pressure.
• Connect your pre-purged beer line to the beer outlet post of your FV and then to the beer out post on the keg.
• Beer will start to flow into the keg, the keg will vent of course via the open prv.
• Now sit back, relax, have a home brew, or take a few pics if you want and wait.
• After a while the flow will stall. I see you are using scales so you will see when the transfer has stopped completely.
• What has happened is the vacuum now created inside the FV above its beer has now equalled the siphoning force of the gravity pulling the beer down into the keg, so the process stops.
• Now is the time to get your pre-purged gas line ready and after closing the keg prv to its normal position, connect the gas line to the keg’s gas post and then to the FV’s gas post.
• The flow will resume because you have a good height differential between the FV beer level and the kegs beer level and because the slightly higher CO2 pressure which now exists inside the keg will want to push up and replace the CO2 vacuum which now exists in the FV (until it equalises), thus allowing the beer to flow down into the keg using gravity as your work mate and the circle of flows, closed transfer wise work in your favour.

I have not had any problems with closed transfers using this method even with fairly high carbonated beers that have been cold crashed from 15 p.s.i. so they would be just about fizzed up enough to drink I would think.

Anyway, give my method a crack and see how you go and let me know please.

 

That advice is spot on @iBooz2, once the pressure equalises transfer stops, the pressure in the keg always has to be lower than the FV pressure, even 1 or 2 PSI difference is enough for a transfer