First Keg Filled.. Possible Fail.

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blakie21

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Hi guys

After much advice from you guys on here I bought my keg setup and have replaced the seals, cleaned kegs with PBW then sanitised with starsan.

One thing I forgot to do after getting so excited to keg my first beer is to run star san through with CO2... (through the posts)

Do you guys think im screwed? I put the star san in the keg and shook it up alot but just didnt think to run it through until I filled it with beer.. I did soak the posts in PBW so I hope its enough.

Also do you need to fill the keg to the top completely?

Cheers
 
Is it gassed up yet ? ... there should be nothing wrong in quickly unscrewing the posts and giving it a quick pull thru of the posts and tubes with a brush dipped in star san



5 eyes



Hi guys

After much advice from you guys on here I bought my keg setup and have replaced the seals, cleaned kegs with PBW then sanitised with starsan.

One thing I forgot to do after getting so excited to keg my first beer is to run star san through with CO2... (through the posts)

Do you guys think im screwed? I put the star san in the keg and shook it up alot but just didnt think to run it through until I filled it with beer.. I did soak the posts in PBW so I hope its enough.

Also do you need to fill the keg to the top completely?

Cheers
 
Hi guys

After much advice from you guys on here I bought my keg setup and have replaced the seals, cleaned kegs with PBW then sanitised with starsan.

One thing I forgot to do after getting so excited to keg my first beer is to run star san through with CO2... (through the posts)

Do you guys think im screwed? I put the star san in the keg and shook it up alot but just didnt think to run it through until I filled it with beer.. I did soak the posts in PBW so I hope its enough.

Also do you need to fill the keg to the top completely?

Cheers

Nah, you'll be fine. Whilst not being the best practise, and you'll probably do the posts and diptube thing next time, i've forgotten several times to do it too, and the resulting beer (all things being equal) turned out fine.
No need to be so paranoid fella.

No need to fill the keg to the top either - you need somewhere for the gas to go, and if the keg is filled up too high, you run the risk of getting beer back up through the gas in dip tube (the shorter one) and then back up your line and into your regulator.
I brew to the volume of my kegs so i usually run out of beer to transfer just as it gets to the level "that looks good" inside my keg - it's massively scienstifick.

Enjoy not having much to clean after a big session. I love my bottles, but i hate the next day....
 
Cheers guys.

I did just take it apart and star san it but having purged it a few times it might have been too late anyway. We'll see!

Yeah thats one of the main reasons I turned to kegging.. too many bottles lying around and having to clean and sanitise them..

What pressure do you guys put the keg to when you are just storing it? (keezer being used as fermentation fridge atm)
 
Cheers guys.

I did just take it apart and star san it but having purged it a few times it might have been too late anyway. We'll see!

Yeah thats one of the main reasons I turned to kegging.. too many bottles lying around and having to clean and sanitise them..

What pressure do you guys put the keg to when you are just storing it? (keezer being used as fermentation fridge atm)

I force carb at 200 something (not sure of the unit - i just know where it is on my regulator) for a minute using a timer. Then i put it down for 15mins. Burp keg, repeat process, come back after 15mins. Burp keg again, and if not required put it back in cold fridge. This whole process assumes that the beer is already cold conditioned and at serving temp prior to force carbing.

Works for me.
 
you clean your kegs!? :eek:

you could omit the starsan and replace with boiling water. when shaken up it will release special gas and allow you to force very fkn hot water up through the dip tube without actually using any gas - it is like sanatising magic

i think there is a thread by dave70 from wayback that outlines it all

but then its not like a few squirts of starsan puts a hole in the wallet
 
Pushing StarSan with CO2 is not good as I recall. Causes some kind of reaction and it stinks. Possibly not goot to breath either.


Just get a new squirt bottle like used to spray window cleaner and fill it with StarSan. Use it on anything you want to kill bugs on.

I just pour enough StarSan in kegs to be able to slosh it around. I then dump it out in the sink and leave it upside down to drain out as much foam as possible. I take the dip tube out and squirt all the parts with StarSan and then put it all together to fill.
 
Hi guys

After much advice from you guys on here I bought my keg setup and have replaced the seals, cleaned kegs with PBW then sanitised with starsan.

One thing I forgot to do after getting so excited to keg my first beer is to run star san through with CO2... (through the posts)

Do you guys think im screwed? I put the star san in the keg and shook it up alot but just didnt think to run it through until I filled it with beer.. I did soak the posts in PBW so I hope its enough.

Also do you need to fill the keg to the top completely?

Cheers


she'll be fine, the non full keg is fine as long as you have the head filled with c02.
 
Pushing StarSan with CO2 is not good as I recall. Causes some kind of reaction and it stinks. Possibly not goot to breath either.

I'll have to research that... My process includes pushing a couple of litres of starsan through the beer out tube prior to packaging under CO2 pressure. Never noticed an off smell, but not really looking for it either.
 
2 litres of boiling water into the clean keg, swish it around vigorously to build up pressure, put a rag and a screwdriver onto the out post, push down and allow the boiling water to come up the dip tube, swish again and do the same with the gas tube. :beerbang:
 
I'll have to research that... My process includes pushing a couple of litres of starsan through the beer out tube prior to packaging under CO2 pressure. Never noticed an off smell, but not really looking for it either.

I do this all the time. Never noticed a problem

I even store kegs with a litre or two of starsan in them. Invariably, the starsan ends up carbonated

Ps: if you are making soda water rinse the starsan/iodophor out first ;)
 
Fill the beer up to the 'weld line' of the kegs.

You'll probably be fine regarding not getting starsan in the posts, but do it next time.

Never heard of any issues with starsan/co2, I do it all the time and I highly recommend it.

1 - Clean keg with napisan to your liking.
2 - Put 1L of Starsan/Water mixture in keg and slosh it around right way up, upside down and roll it around so that starsan touches all inner surfaces of the keg.
3 - Hold keg upside down and pull on pressure relief valve so that some starsan comes out of it. Then close it.
4 - While still upside down push in the gas poppet so that some starsan comes out of it.
5 - Put it right way up and optionally allow it to settle for a while if you fear the foam. I don't bother.
6 - Hook gas up to gas disconnect, purge keg a bit to get rid of some oxygen
7 - Hook beer disconnect up with a length of hose going into a jug to catch the starsan, or if you have a bronco tap setup use that. Let the co2 force the starsan mix out as if it was beer. It'll start just pushing foam out after a while, that's fine, but if it starts pushing gas out with the foam stop it. You can wait a bit for the foam to settle and push more out if you want, I don't bother.
8 - Disconnect the beer and gas disconnects from the keg (it should still have co2 at pressure inside it)
9 - Position it under your fermenter and hook up one of these http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=1118 to a liquid disconnect. Push the liquid disconnect over your beer out post on the keg and probably more foam will come out. Position the end so that the foam goes into your closed fermenter tap to sanitise it. Once the gas is only down to a hiss push the silicone hosing over the fermenter tap. You now have sanitised co2 filled keg and tubing from fermenter to keg. Nice.
10 - Pull the pressure relief valve on the keg so that it's stuck open.
11 - Open the fermenter tap. The beer will go down the tubing, down the kegs beer dip tube and into the bottom of the keg. You don't need to worry about splashing because the keg is full of co2. Once the keg is near full the starsan foam that is now sitting on top of the beer will start coming out the pressure relief valve, giving it a bit of further sanitation and letting you know the jobs almost done. Once full to your liking disconnect the liquid disconnect from the keg and close the pressure relief valve.
12 - Burp the headspace out of the keg and carb the keg in your desired way.

Additionally you can use the tube linked to above to fill a bottle or two at a pinch if you have leftover beer in the fermenter.

I learned this from argon and it's some of the best advice I've ever had here, and that product above is the best $7 I've ever spent on brew gear.
 
Pushing StarSan with CO2 is not good as I recall. Causes some kind of reaction and it stinks. Possibly not goot to breath either.
I'll have to research that... My process includes pushing a couple of litres of starsan through the beer out tube prior to packaging under CO2 pressure. Never noticed an off smell, but not really looking for it either.
I do this all the time. Never noticed a problem
+1 I've been doing it for over a year (since switching from iodophor to starsan) and haven't noticed any unexpected smells in my beer nor my stored empty kegs. I don't push as much through the diptube as argon; just enough to get contact, but I do purge and pressurise the kegs while there's still residual starsan there. Anyway, it'll be good to know for sure, so I've just sent off an email to Five Star Chemicals - let's see what they say...

Cheers,
tallie
 
1 - Clean keg with napisan to your liking.
...
9 - Position it under your fermenter and hook up one of these http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=1118 to a liquid disconnect. Push the liquid disconnect over your beer out post on the keg and probably more foam will come out. Position the end so that the foam goes into your closed fermenter tap to sanitise it. Once the gas is only down to a hiss push the silicone hosing over the fermenter tap. You now have sanitised co2 filled keg and tubing from fermenter to keg. Nice.
...
12 - Burp the headspace out of the keg and carb the keg in your desired way.

Exactly what I do - closed transfer FTW! :beerbang:

Cheers,
tallie
 
I do the same but filter now. Although my filter tore so I haven't been able to use it for the last brew. It's so eay racking without filtering.
 
One more thing i've now added to my process as mark does (apart from an inline filter) is i steal the bathroom scales and put the empty keg on it. When the scale reaches 19kg above the empty weight, i know it's full. Easy
 
Really? So 19kg = 19L of beer? Dunno why but I assumed it wouldn't work exactly like that.

I've been thinking of getting some scales for use in the brewery, for example I could record the net weight of a keg and then measure my kegs to work out how much beer is left in them. For example I need to transfer one of my kegs into a 9L keg so that I can keg another full batch this weekend. Whatever beer is already close to half empty I'll be drinking tonight in an attemp to get it down to 9L (just my civic duty you know). So it'd be awesome to weigh the kegs and know that it has say 10.5 litres meaning I only need to drink 1.5 litres to get it down to the right level.
 
Really? So 19kg = 19L of beer? Dunno why but I assumed it wouldn't work exactly like that.
Given that most beers are >90-95% water, it'd be close enough.

I've been thinking of getting some scales for use in the brewery, for example I could record the net weight of a keg and then measure my kegs to work out how much beer is left in them. For example I need to transfer one of my kegs into a 9L keg so that I can keg another full batch this weekend. Whatever beer is already close to half empty I'll be drinking tonight in an attemp to get it down to 9L (just my civic duty you know). So it'd be awesome to weigh the kegs and know that it has say 10.5 litres meaning I only need to drink 1.5 litres to get it down to the right level.
I don't filter, so I'm wary of moving my settled kegs around unnecessarily. My trick to seeing how much is left inside a keg is to pour a bit of boiling water down the side of it and see where the condensation line forms. Close enough for my needs :icon_cheers:

Cheers,
tallie

edit: typo
 
Scales is a good idea. It'd be great to have a visual prompt to how much is left in each keg. I've seen those (not very good) stickers you can get that don't really do anything some hot water does, not much use in a keezer anyway.

A smurf that updates a chart on the front of my keezer daily would be ideal, failing that I just use the - is it heavy? - technique to gauge how much left. Can't imagine anyone has ever been bothered to mark up the outside of their keg with measurements?

I always fill below gas dip tube - and I too push a bit of starsan (very weak in solution - parts per ml must be miniscule) out of the keg to sanitise everything prior to sealed transfer through beer out post.

Shitfting a half-empty (ish) keg to a 9L keg, or just saving what's left in a - not heavy anymore - keg are both big reasons I've got a CPBF on my Xmas list, it'd be great to have the option to save excess when I need to free a keg. I'm even motivated enough to bottle a few when I transfer to keg from Primary/Secondary.

*Your first keg sounds fine - you cleaned the posts and sanitised everything else, I'm sure you'll be fine, especially since it's your first and won't be around too long I'd imagine.
 
One more thing i've now added to my process as mark does (apart from an inline filter) is i steal the bathroom scales and put the empty keg on it. When the scale reaches 19kg above the empty weight, i know it's full. Easy

Awesome.

Been wondering how to know when my keg is actually full in order to do closed transfers!

19KG of 1.010 beer should be about 18.81L which is pretty darn close to the 5 galon mark ;)

Cheap analog bathroom scales... is there nothing they can't do?
 
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