Hi Dags, so getting beer from fermenter to keg has one main issue, oxygen pick up, which is why people pressure transfer, and purge their kegs and use a tonne of CO2 doing it.
Once the beer is in the keg the main issue is carbonation, so how to kill 2 issues with one process?
Put the fermenter on a bench or table, needs to be higher than a keg, get a piece of silicon tube big enough to fit onto the fermenter tap and long enough to go to the bottom of the keg.
Boil a cup of water with 70 grams of sugar in it.
Sanitise your keg, fermenter tap, and silicon tube.
Put boiled sugar water into keg.
Attach silicon hose to fermenter tap and put it into the keg.
Slacken off the fermenter lid so the crap in the air lock isn't sucked into the fermenter when you drain the beer.
Open tap and fill keg. No need to purge keg first.
Fit keg lid, and put in a warm (not colder than 18) place for a week, then put the keg into keggerator for 24hrs to chill, and serve.
So what we just did was initiate a secondary fermentation (just a little one) during which time the yeast will consume any oxygen that got in at transfer, issue one solved, as a result of this secondary ferment the yeast will also produce CO2 and carbonate the beer similar to what happens when you bottle condition, issue 2 solved, and as a bonus it extends the shelf life of the beer compared to force carbonating.
This procedure will result in a naturally carbonated beer, it may be a bit too fizzy or a bit too flat for your taste, adjust the amount of sugar to suit, 70g is a good average starting point, once hooked up to gas you can increase or decrease the fizziness by adjusting the gas pressure, most folks use about 12psi but this varies with setup and personal taste.
I use 100g of sugar and one of these
KegLand Diaphragm Spunding Valve Pressure Release Valve Kit I just set the pressure to the level of fizz that I want and any excess CO2 is released automatically.
A point worth noting is if you want clear beer then wait for 2 or 3 weeks before serving, or fit one of these in place of the liquid out tube (the long one)
Stainless Keg Dip Tube for Gas/Short | 9.5L & 19L | KegLand and connect
FermZilla 27L & 55L - SS Float & 80cm Silicone Dip Tube for Kegmenter, Keg, Home Brew to it, this draws beer from the top of the keg and is clearer than sucking it up from the bottom. I suggest getting through a couple of kegs first before doing this though.
