First Post - How Not To Start Kegging...

[MVZOOM]

Hi All,

Spent about 22 hours of the last 24 reading up on some of the posts here - you guys certainly are helpful and supportive of 'the newer brewer'. I like the way that rhymes...

Anywhoo - My name is Mike, I'm a 28 y/o IT Professional (at least that's what they call me!), I have 2 kids and live in Nth Ryde, Sydney. An ex-kiwi (well, still a kiwi, just not living there), have been in Sydney for about 9 years and married a great Aussie girl. I love beer, my cars, cooking, beer and rugby.

I have been brewing for a couple of years, K&K stuff. About a month ago, decided to go kegging, so bought a couple of Cornies, a bottle, decent tap and all the bits. Purchased an aging bar fridge off TradingPost and went at it.

Had to modify the fridge and didn't realise how they worked. So, once I'd flattened out the ice-box (Mistake #1) I installed all the gear along with the Co2 tank into the fridge. Now, all was well with the first few pours on day one - nice, creamy Pale Ale.

Day two passed well also, however I noticed my beer was getting really strong - not just in flavour and in alch content (two glasses and I was a blathering mess - didn't feel like 4.8%) - I didn't put two and two together (Mistake # 2) until about three days later, when I pulled the tap to pull a beer and WHAMMO - nothing happened.

After about 4 mins of soul searching (bear in mind I'd done no research to get to this point), I figured out that the keg was frozen. It seems that ice-boxes don't like to be screwed around with, a corner of it was touching the keg and had frozen the contents. Now this made sense, as I must have been drinking the stuff that freezes last - ie.. alchohol and lighter stuff, which gave me a concentrated beer flavour action.

Anyway. Tried a bunch of diff positions of the keg in fridge, temp settings etc.. and nothing worked. As I lamented my tale of woe to a good mate, he mentioned to me that he knew of a second hand big fridge that I could get FOC. We went and got it (cost me a six-pack of beer),I transferred the guts of the system into it (after a 3hr cleaning job - yikes) and we all thought happy days, problem solved.

Although I had to move the new fridge to the garage, it would take 4 kegs easily and looked like a better move. Well, it barely got down to 7deg, so it's poked. Yesterday I spoke to a fridge guy who told me how to fix fridge #1, which I did, moved everything back to it and think that everything looks ok - it's holding liquid (ie.. some water in a container) at 5deg C, so I'll leave it like that for a couple of days, then wind it down to 3deg C. Only prob now is that it only holds 1 keg..

I have a Coopers Cervaeca (Spell?) in the fermenter at the moemnt, which is running waaaay to high temp (av is about 24deg!) and am thinking of using Big Fridge to sort this stuff out.

Anyway - onto the questions!

Questions:

1) Does fully freezing a keg, then re-Co2'ing it kill beer?

2) I want to use Big Fridge to cool wort down. All the K&K kits say that I can't take the yeast below 18deg - but I read heaps of people doing long 1st fermentations at like 11deg C etc.. Do I have to use different yeast, or what's the trick?

3) What beer types / cans are conducive to point #2? I like any kind of beer except for strong bitters and porters..

4) What's the best way for me to cheaply thermo control big fridge to keep it at say 11deg? I'm not averse to wiring stuff, but would prefer a plug'n'play type solution.

Any help appreciated, sorry for the long post!

Cheers - Mike

 

[bindi]

Here is a start on the frozen keg Link about frozen kegs Oh, and welcome

 

[Jim_Levet]

Frozen kegs are no great drama, just let them thaw & go again. Its all a bit of a suck-it + see job to start.
If you need fridge repairs in North Ryde check out Harry in Cutler Pde, pm me for the ph number or drop into Ron's Barber shop on Blenheim Rd, he has Harry's card on the counter & Ron has a keg set up too!
James

 

[Uncle Fester]

G'day mate... Welcome.

A couple of quick answers ....

Try using the site search for lager yeast. Very few (almost zero) people here use the supplied dry kit yeast for a lager. There are a multitude of specialised yeasts out there that work at sub 10 degrees. 18 to 20 degrees is pretty much the optimum for Ales.

Do another search for temperature controllers, and buld a whiz bang to control the big fridge to 10-20 degrees. You may want to have it re-gassed, and you never know, it may be fine back to 1 degree.

The answers you seek are within this site, often repeated many times. I have had difficulty with the search engine before, but there is a current post out there, explaining how to use the advanced search functions.

Link


Good luck.

Salut!


M

 

[pint of lager]

1) What Jim Levett said. Yes, you can thaw the keg out and go again, but, if you have already consumed alot of the concentrated beer while the top was frozen, when the whole lot thaws out and remixes, it may end up being a bit thin in character as you drank the good stuff.

2) low temperature fermentation is done by using a proper lager yeast. Be warned, many of the kits that are labelled lagers, actually use an ale yeast. Ask your homebrew shop to show you which kits use a true lager yeast, or buy a lager yeast.

3) beer styles that are classed lagers include Munich helles, pilsner, bock, Oktoberfest. Have another crack at a porter and make sure you add some chocolate specialty grain, it really changes and enhances the flavour.

4) what mandrakar said

Lookout, lagers are very addictive, they take longer to ferment, longer to condition and are so easy to drink.

 

[Jye]

Hey MVZOOM, welocome to the site :beer:

1) Does fully freezing a keg, then re-Co2'ing it kill beer?

Just let it thaw out and you will be good to go.

2) I want to use Big Fridge to cool wort down. All the K&K kits say that I can't take the yeast below 18deg - but I read heaps of people doing long 1st fermentations at like 11deg C etc.. Do I have to use different yeast, or what's the trick?

Next time your at your LHBS pick up some safale or saflager, there is heaps of info on the forum about these and are great simple yeast to use.

4) What's the best way for me to cheaply thermo control big fridge to keep it at say 11deg? I'm not averse to wiring stuff, but would prefer a plug'n'play type solution.

Here is a recent thread on a digital temp controller, a quick search will bring up others. If you want a plug n play you will be paying $100 plus.

Jye
Cheers :beer:

 

[MVZOOM]

Thanks, my brothers in arms.

Interesting, as I went to a forum in the US on Friday about this stuff and the 'guru' over there told me to dump the beer as it was spoiled... but I've been drinking it anyway - apart from the rash - it's been fine?!

So, now I'd better get:

- Thermo Unit for Old big fridge
- Second Fermentor for Racking (if I rack in 6DegC, it's all good?)
- More kegs, as I'll need to stock up on beer before comitting my fermentor to a 6 week first stage!

My wife's going to kill me. Thanks for all your help.

Cheers - Mike

 

[Screwtop]

Hi Mike and welcome.

The simplest and easiest to install and use is the Adloheat Temp Controller, just mount the control on the outside of the fridge with sticky velcro (no holes, transportable from fridge to fridge) run the capilliary in through the door and stick to inside of fridge with duct tape. The cap wire is so thin that the fridge door seal seals around it . Plug it into power and then plug the fridge into the controller. Set the temp using the dial, use a small electronic probe thermo and adjust the knob position to give the required temp. Here is the Link to Adloheat the one required is Fan Control Model THF 0-40oC 10 Amp (fan/brew/fridge use)

Cheers

PS: Try liquid yeasts you can step them up and get 6 splits. 6 brews from one buy. Check out the G&G past use-buy Wyeast at only $7.50 hav not had a bad one.

 

[MVZOOM]

OK guys - thanks heaps for the replies. Just ordered one of those aquarium thermometre units, which I'll stick into the next wort.

I'll do a lager, shove it in the non-working fridge, put a couple of icebottles in that fridge and give it a shot that way.

I really have to stop spending money on this stuff - just for a couple of months!

Ooooh, excited.

Cheers - Mike

 

[Keifer]

I'll do a lager, shove it in the non-working fridge, put a couple of icebottles in that fridge and give it a shot that way.

THis is what im doing at the moment with 10 litre bottles and some 1.25litre's for *cough* 'fine tuning' the temp. Gets a good stable temp 12-15c. Could get it lower if needed btw..

 

[MVZOOM]

THis is what im doing at the moment with 10 litre bottles and some 1.25litre's for *cough* 'fine tuning' the temp. Gets a good stable temp 12-15c. Could get it lower if needed btw..

Awesome - how big is the fridge and how many bottle / rotation are you using?

Cheers -Mike

 

[Stickler]

G'day MVZ, out of curiosity, what did the fridgie tell you to do to fridge #1?. If it's anything like mine I would have thought an external temp controller was the only solution.

Cheers

 

[MVZOOM]

G'day Stickler,

I'd initially bent the freezer box (which is actually the freezing element) straight with one 90deg angle, so it folded along the back and one of the sides, internally. I stuck the probe between the back and the freezing element, thinking that it read only the tip.

My mate - he's not a fridgee, but an aircon engineer and accountant (??) told me to re-insert the probe, which is a 100cm piece of very stiff wire, covered in a plastic back where it came from. A little bit hard, as I'd broken the clips taking it out and had nothing to mount it back on.

So, took a couple of those plastic cable ties and secured it via the clip holes, so it runs for about 80mm along the element. Basically, the probe wasn't getting cold enough and needed to get reeeeeeaaaallly freezing before it turned the compressor off.

Then, I popped a bit of MDF in the rear and turned the back of the fridge (motor hump back) into it's own compartment - so the cooling element cannot touch the keg.

Seems to work fine - tonight everything is sitting at 4.9deg and I've just turned it down a touch more. I want 3deg C out of it.

Very happy! IS that clear or do you want some pics? I'm a visual bloke so tried to explain as well as I could.

Cheers - Mike