Just Kegged My First Beer!

[Siborg]

As the topic says, I kegged my first beer yesterday. Spent a bit of time prepping everything, but I'll explain my process and see if anyone can comment/ make suggestions for the next one.

I pulled the keg (corny) apart, replaced the seals and soaked everything in the keg overnight in PBW and rinsed thouroughly the next day.

Then I had the fun (it really was) part of testing it all out with water. For some reason, the beer out post on the keg kept spurting out water whenever I applied some CO2. I tried attaching and disconnecting the QD a few times, but it wasn't sealing properly. I replaced it with another one and it was fine. Is the post/poppit on this broken, should I buy a new one?

After playing around with the water, and even having a practice at force carbing the water, I decided I was ready to keg the real deal. Put a couple of litres of starsan mixture (diluted 1.5mL to 1L) in the keg and shook, then left for a couple of minutes and tipped (kept for later).

When I racked the beer from the fermenter to the keg (it had been cold conditioning in the fermenter for about a week), I had this massive snake of starsan foam coming out, but from what I read this is normal, right? The only problem with this was that I couldn't see the top of the keg or the beer level, so I had no idea how full it was, knowing that it had to be a couple of cm from the top. I think I got it ~95% full. Force carbed around 40psi, which I believe is around 300kpa. And it went well even though it took a few goes to get a decent level of carbonation.

Now: foaming. Its not too bad, but it is a pain to have a jug and waste a half a glass to a whole glass of beer before it stops foaming. Believe me, I'll be doing my reading on this today, instead of working, but can I get around this by either lowering the serving pressure which I have at just under 10psi and/or increasing the line length between the font and the keg? I have the line set at around 4 meters currently.

Besides the little foaming issue and a few leaky posts, it went quite well. Have to brew some more now. I even have my brothers interested and they've requested I brew them some golden ale... too easy!

 

[white.grant]

Couple of things I do;

One thing is to pressurise the keg and push the starsan out of the beer out just to make sure I've got the diptube nice and sanitised. Then when I rack into the keg there's a blaket of CO2 on top of the beer as it fills. If you give it some time to settle, you can also avoid the starsan bubble snake too.

Also, you'll find that lubing up the internal seals with a food grade libricant helps with sealing and yes replace the poppet.

Have fun with the balancing. I found the wiki article really helpful when I first got my kegs.

cheers

grant

 

[Siborg]

Couple of things I do;

One thing is to pressurise the keg and push the starsan out of the beer out just to make sure I've got the diptube nice and sanitised. Then when I rack into the keg there's a blaket of CO2 on top of the beer as it fills. If you give it some time to settle, you can also avoid the starsan bubble snake too.

Also, you'll find that lubing up the internal seals with a food grade libricant helps with sealing and yes replace the poppet.

Have fun with the balancing. I found the wiki article really helpful when I first got my kegs.

cheers

grant

Oh yeah... Forgot to mention. I flushed a bit of starsan through the font, then cleared the line before drinking. Food grade lube, ey... nothing sus

 

[white.grant]

Oh yeah... Forgot to mention. I flushed a bit of starsan through the font, then cleared the line before drinking. Food grade lube, ey... nothing sus

They say KY works really well B)

 

[remi]

i follow this guys regime for keg cleaning/ maintenance. probably a bit too anal, but what are you gonna do?



remi

 

[Siborg]

i follow this guys regime for keg cleaning/ maintenance. probably a bit too anal, but what are you gonna do?



remi

I've seen this guys videos on AG brewing. Was a really good intro to AG

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Now: foaming. Its not too bad, but it is a pain to have a jug and waste a half a glass to a whole glass of beer before it stops foaming. Believe me, I'll be doing my reading on this today, instead of working, but can I get around this by either lowering the serving pressure which I have at just under 10psi and/or increasing the line length between the font and the keg? I have the line set at around 4 meters currently.

I'm having the same issue with mine and have since determined that I need to increase the line length (to somewhere around 7m) or buy one of the pressure compensators that CB stock. I'd prefer the pressure regulator to having 30m of coiled beer line in the kegerator, but am nervous about implementing it.

 

[raven19]

Congrats on moving into kegging.

Balancing the system as per posts above or a Celli Tap with flow restrictor will see those foaming issues resolved.

 

[QldKev]

There is a really good article on here about 'balancing a keg system'

If you are already running a decent length of beer line (4m) I would be looking at your gassing procedure. You mentioned you used about 40psi, but what was the pocedure you used? Rocking or waiting 24hrs? I got rid of my issues by leaving all my kegs at serving pressure for a week or two; which is ok if you have the keg space.

My guess is you have overgassed the beer.

QldKev

 

[QldKev]

They say KY works really well B)

it's good for all your bits! h34r:

QldKev

 

[Siborg]

I'm having the same issue with mine and have since determined that I need to increase the line length (to somewhere around 7m) or buy one of the pressure compensators that CB stock. I'd prefer the pressure regulator to having 30m of coiled beer line in the kegerator, but am nervous about implementing it.

Is that the one that adjusts the pressure at the tap?

 

[Siborg]

There is a really good article on here about 'balancing a keg system'

If you are already running a decent length of beer line (4m) I would be looking at your gassing procedure. You mentioned you used about 40psi, but what was the pocedure you used? Rocking or waiting 24hrs? I got rid of my issues by leaving all my kegs at serving pressure for a week or two; which is ok if you have the keg space.

My guess is you have overgassed the beer.

QldKev

Force carbed at 40psi, then rocked and rocked and rolled. Then released all the keg pressure and mopped up all the beer and foam with a towel, then pressurised to serving pressures and poured.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Force carbed at 40psi, then rocked and rocked and rolled. Then released all the keg pressure and mopped up all the beer and foam with a towel, then pressurised to serving pressures and poured.

Force carbing might be the common issue Siborg (I also force carbed using Ross's method). The pressure compensator is an inline one that can sit anywhere along your beer line.

Slightly OT, but has anyone used one with success? If it gives good results I'm happy to shell out the extra cash, but am wary of turbulance (which I'm told is a very real risk and will cause just as much foaming).

Edit: going to start a new topic to discuss compensators

 

[glaab]

I rinse the starsan out with a hose before filling, It takes about a minute to wash away all the foam, it doesn't seem to rinse off too easily.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

I rinse the starsan out with a hose before filling, It takes about a minute to wash away all the foam, it doesn't seem to rinse off too easily.

Umm... doesn't that defeat the purpose of using a no-rinse sanitiser? Starsan foam is your friend; leave it in the keg and fill to below the gas in (shouldn't be too hard to see that through the foam)

 

[glaab]

Never had an infection. I don't like the idea of drinking it. It never occurred to me not to hose it out !

 

[Siborg]

shouldn't be too hard to see that through the foam

oh yes it is

 

[MeLoveBeer]

oh yes it is

How long are you leaving it in your keg before tipping it? I normally leave the starsan in my keg for a while and the foam has never been an issue; maybe leave it in for a while before tipping it out and see if it subsides?

 

[Fourstar]

i simply do the 500ml of starsan soak, push through all posts and leave it open upside down for 5 minutes. i then seal u and pop in a few kpa of gass through the beer out tube and vent the PRV and gas in posts.

As i fill via filter and in via the beer out post, the time it takes to fill, any residual starsan foam subsides by the time im full.

MeLoveBeer - what pressure/temp are you serving at? surely it shouldnt need to be that long. i'd be serving at anywhere between 50-80KPA off aroud 2M line. for a typical 2.5vol of carbonation. assuming its not over carbonated it should be just about right.

 

[mxd]

Simon and Mark if your running 4 and 7 mtrs of line length and you have pouring issues then I would assume your over carbed (or your serving at cellar temp ? a little more information here will assist) or you serving pressure is too high, look at the balancing spread sheet and set you temperature and desired carbonation (e.g 2.5) then it will tell you serving pressure and line length.

400 Kpa is 4 Bar, for you next keg you can try 350 KPA for 24 hours, then burp it and our and see what it's like.

I do 36 hours at 350 Kpa as I place the keg in the frdge at room temp. If your over carbed, burp the gas and wait

I'm roughly 2 degree's 80Kpa, 2.5 carbonation level and 2 mtrs.

good luck, I remember when I started kegging and went though hell, now for the first pour of the day I "waste" about 100 ml (stuff in the line, might be a bit warmer in the font) then it's fine. My wife prefer to pour with pints than with glasses as she can "recover" from a bad pour. I also have a couple of taps that seem to alway pour bad (if not taps then position ?)


good luck

Matt