Carbing And Serving Pressure For Neills Centennial Ale

[The Giant]

Hi People

Sorry for another newbie Keg carbing questions, but done heaps of reading and just want to get it right.

Got Neills Centennial Ale extract brew cold conditioning and ready to put in my kegs for the very first time.

Been reading up as much as i can but just wanted to double check with everyone.

Got the standard 19L Corny keg which will be full and served through these taps Bronco Tap

Now got a few lads coming over Friday night so want the keg ready by then, will keg tonight.

This is the plan from what I've read but please correct me if I'm doing wrong:
1. Sanitise Keg
2. Fill & Seal Keg
3. Burp Keg
4. Connect up Gas fittings
5. Crank regulator so pressure reads 200kpa
6. Give Keg a quick shake and leave for 48 hours
7. After 48 hours, turn off gas, burp keg
8. Turn gas back on and Set reg to 80kpa for serving pressure
9. Fill frosty glass and pour perfect beer and enjoy

In a perfect world and all going to plan I should have no dramas but I know things never turn out like that.

I have read up on the Ross method of forced carbonation and def plan to use that route but maybe next time. A lot of the comments i read about that method have first time users complaining of over carbing the keg and I really dont want to spend my Friday night with the boys burping the keg reassuring them I will have beer and not foam soon.

Cheers
Steve

 

[tonyt]

Giant,

From my experience, starting from chilled beer 48 hrs at 200kpa gives me ice cream! I have a 23 litre keg and do 300 kpa for 16 Hours. IMO your better of being a little under carbed and just leaving on serving pressure say around 70 kpa and it will find it equilibrium.

Cheers and good luck

 

[argon]

your method sounds about right mate. If you want, there is a couple of things you can do to reduce sediment in the keg, minimise potential for contamination and minimise oxygen pickup at packaging which will help flavour stability over time. (May or may not be a concern with a bunch of mates ready to empty your keg... but a good habit to get into to make sure you have the best possible beer in your keg)

The way I do it (when not filtering) is like this;

Cleaning/sanatising and purging;
- Chill the beer at -1C for 4-7 days prior to packaging
- Day 4 of cold conditioning Use finings, such as Gelatine or isinglass to further drop out the yeast
- Day 6 use polyclar to reduce chill haze and let it drop for 24-48 hrs (Extract beers can throw a wicked haze)
- Make up 3-4L of hot napisan or PBW solution in keg running through the PRV, beer out and gas out posts (use a small screwdriver to depress and let the fluid out)
- Soak in this cleaner for at least 24hrs (shake and turn upside down after 12hrs or so)
- Rinse with hot water to get out all foam and residue of cleaner
- Make up 3L starsan solution in cool/room temp water in keg running through the PRV, beer out and gas out posts and let soak for 10mins or so
- Pressurize keg and pour out starsan through your bronco tap into a bucket (this both sanatises and purges O2 from the entire keg and your serving line)

Now for packaging;
- Place the fermenter up as high as you can above the top of the keg
- Get yourself a gravity connector and attach a beer line and beer out disconnect to it
- Attach the assembled line to the beer out post (a little starsan foam and Co2 will be expelled through the line purging and sanatising it)
- Open the fermenter tap and let a little flow out into a cup to get rid of the sediment in caught in the tap (eg hydro sample). Then spray with sanatiser. Close tap
- Attach the gravity connector to the fermenter tap (keep the tap closed)
- Unscrew the pressure relief valve on the keg
- Open the fermenter tap and watch the contents of the fermenter flow into a 100% sanatised and CO2 filled keg.

Sounds way convoluted when writing it down... but it makes sense and isn't that much effort.


Edit: Carbonating;

I find best results when i just leave it at serving pressure for 7 days. If you don't have the time, hook it up at 300kpa for 24hrs and then at serving pressure for a day or 2. Should be about right. Don't try and rock it about too much after packaging as you'll stir up any sediment.

 

[The Giant]

Thanks for the advice

So prob best to run 300kpa for the next 16-24 hours. Then burp keg and return to serving pressure of around 70kpa?