Kegging Setups

[Mardoo]

Which brand Deej? I'm in the process of selecting manifolds.

 

[Mardoo]

Which brand Deej? I'm in the process of selecting manifolds.

 

[jonnir]

I'm interested to, about to change from splitters to a manifold to tidy things up in the keezer

 

[Crusty]

I got my manifold from CraftBrewer.
Ross was kind enough to swap out the barbed fittings for JG quick disconnects.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

From Martin at National Homebrew, unsure of the brand but the valves are if a superior quality to KK and the thread ports cut cleaner. The mounting part of the manifold with bolt holes is on a 45 degree angle, thats the most noticeable difference!

 

[rude]

ImageUploadedByAussie Home Brewer1441183314.506106.jpg
Here's my setup.

Nice looking Kolsch too

 

[Blind Dog]

From Martin at National Homebrew, unsure of the brand but the valves are if a superior quality to KK and the thread ports cut cleaner. The mounting part of the manifold with bolt holes is on a 45 degree angle, thats the most noticeable difference!

Pretty sure that'll be the new KK manifold if it's got red taps

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Pretty sure that'll be the new KK manifold if it's got red taps

I believe its from Malaysia not China so might be similar but assembled by elsewhere?

 

[fdsaasdf]

I got my manifold from CraftBrewer.
Ross was kind enough to swap out the barbed fittings for JG quick disconnects.

That's great, I didn't realise there was a ready-made fitting to do this... Wishing I knew about it before buying a barbed manifold from KK!

 

[fdsaasdf]

Tested this out again yesterday, left the foam in. Switched the font fan on low speed when I went back to work for my second half, when I got home the font, tap mounts and taps all had condensation on them. Poured a beer, no foam at all was poured. The beer hasn't fully carbonated yet but it is carbonated enough for warm lines/taps etc. to cause foaming. Pretty happy with that! Next time I'll try the fan on full blast and see if there's any difference just for the hell of it, but at least I know the speed that does work well.

Congratulations on getting it sorted, which model fridge / kegerator do you have? Where did you source the power from to run your fan? I have tapped the internal fan 12v line but it only runs intermittently so once the font gets to be quite chilled it cuts out. I think I might end up resorting to running separate power in...

 

[Rocker1986]

Hi mate, I have a Keg King kegerator which I got from Craftbrewer. Not sure of the exact model, but basically exactly like the one shacked posted in his kegging thread.

I bought the Digital Homebrew font snake, and I just run the supplied power cord from it into a power point. It runs through the hole in the back with the gas line, and is plugged up from the outside with bits of foam that came with the shelves in the kegerator. I have a power board next to the kegerator with the kegerator using one plug and the fan using the other.

I simply switch the fan off when I'm not pouring beers, and switch it on about an hour or so before I plan to pour one. Otherwise, I use the flow control to avoid foaming on the first part of the pour and skull the flattish beer before pouring a proper glass, but the fan gets turned on of course as well.

 

[Rocker1986]

Hi guys,

Just a quick question.

Up until yesterday, I've only had one keg at a time in my kegerator, with the gas hooked directly into it from the cylinder (through a non-return valve of course), yesterday I filled a second keg, and then used a T-piece to run two lines off the main gas line into each keg. Since hooking all this up and turning the gas back on, I've noticed that the pressure creeps up after a few hours on the regulator. I have it set normally to about 11PSI, but I've noticed it move itself up to 12-13 PSI. Is this normal when introducing extra kegs to the system? I have a Micromatic regulator. On the first keg it was a bit up and down at first, but settled itself down after a few days. There are no leaks on the system. Just a bit annoying having to constantly reset the pressure... although it does seem to be settling down now.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

I've got a micromatic too but it does not creep noticeably at all. Regulator creep is common, but adding a keg shouldn't change that really. Are you sure the non return valve is working? Could be passing upstream and your carbonated keg is causing the slightly higher pressure?

 

[Rocker1986]

Mine varied pressure when I initially hooked it up, but after a few days to a week it settled down and since then it hasn't moved either direction once it's been set to a certain pressure. Yesterday it began doing this after I hooked up the second keg. I'm not sure about the non return valve, I assume it's working though. It's only new, like the rest of the fittings.

I reset it last night before I went to bed, at 11PSI, this morning it was sitting near 13 PSI, so I reset it again before going to work. I just checked it before and it hadn't really moved at all in the 5 hours or whatever since it was reset, so maybe it's settling down again.

 

[glenwal]

Are you force carbing your kegs? Or are you lowering the pressure on the reg?

Either of these can cause it to creep if the keg is carbed above the "balance" for the level you have the reg set to as gas will start coming out of the beer.

The nrv should theoretically stop the additional pressure in the keg making it back to the reg, but if it's only slight, it probably isn't enough of a pressure difference for the nrv to work.

 

[Rocker1986]

They are force carbed yes, although I use the 'set and forget' method of simply hooking them up at serving pressure and waiting. When the reg went up I dropped the pressure completely on it before resetting it to 11PSI.

On Saturday I filled a third keg and hooked that up, and I haven't been home since until now. The pressure had stayed where it was set to in that time, so I guess it's settled itself down now.

 

[hooper80]

I'm thinking of making a coffin keezer and I will make the coffin big enough to hold 5-6 taps. I'm just wondering why I wouldn't cut a big hole nearly the size of the coffin out of the freezer lid rather that just drill three holes for the hoses and circulation from fan? If I cut a big square hole and have a fan in the keezer, wouldn't the coffin cool as part as the keezer?

 

[earle]

I'm thinking of making a coffin keezer and I will make the coffin big enough to hold 5-6 taps. I'm just wondering why I wouldn't cut a big hole nearly the size of the coffin out of the freezer lid rather that just drill three holes for the hoses and circulation from fan? If I cut a big square hole and have a fan in the keezer, wouldn't the coffin cool as part as the keezer?

I've just finished building my coffin top keezer. You can find some pictures of the coffin in this thread. http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/88212-earles-coffin-keezer/

The answer to your question is probably yes, you could do it with one big hole but you also want to think about insulation. If you can thoroughly insulate you coffin to the same standard as your freezer you would be ok. Otherwise the coffin is a potential source for loss of cold and increased electricity bills. I think thats the reason to insulate it as well as possible but to also remove dead space by filling with blocks of insulation. The fan blowing cool air into my coffin is on all the time but the coffin doesn't get as cold as the freezer, I put that down to loss of cold as due to space limitation not all sides of the coffin have really thick insulation, some have less. Some cold also travels out of through the shanks and taps but its hard to avoid that. I'm going to fit a timer so that the coffin is only cooled from about 3pm to 8pm each day, maybe more on weekends. Even though there are holes through the lid permanently, the cooler air will tend to stay in the freezer. With one big hole it would be more difficult to have control over when you do and don't want cool air in the coffin. Depends how you're going to build it and what you want it to do.

 

[hooper80]

Wow looks epic!! I was thinking about using a smaller fibreglass esky upside down for the insulation of my coffin then just hide the esky look with timber. I see a lot of work gos into these keezers.

 

[earle]

Thanks. If it's one of those techniice type eskys I reckon that could work quite well. I would still position the fan in the freezer so it is blowing cool air up into the coffin. Just means that you'll be doing all the fitting of the taps from below instead of behind but shouldn't be a problem. You would need to make sure your tap shanks are long enough. I got 100mm shanks and was thinking they were unnecessarily long. In reality I could have gone longer so that a good chunk of the shank is exposed to the cold. As it was I chose 35mm insulation for that section rather than the preferred 50mm just so I could leave a section exposed to absorb the cold.