KegLand Questions and Answers

[KegLand-com-au]

Is it 100% SS, or will it have a plastic lid like another example already on the market?

Pretty much the whole unit is made from SS including the lid and stand.

 

[Matthopperman]

Is the RAPT temp controller (regular 10a version) able/suitable to act as a controller for a 2200 watt element for step mashing/boil in the way something like the Brewzilla or a PID controller does? I can’t find much info about it being used to control elements for mashes and boils but it is mentioned in a video about what it can do, and mentioned on the Kegland site (but only for the 15A version). It seems like if it is a similar controller to what’s on the Brewzilla it could be a cheap way to set up an eBIAB controller.

 

[Bark0s]

Is the RAPT temp controller (regular 10a version) able/suitable to act as a controller for a 2200 watt element for step mashing/boil in the way something like the Brewzilla or a PID controller does? I can’t find much info about it being used to control elements for mashes and boils but it is mentioned in a video about what it can do, and mentioned on the Kegland site (but only for the 15A version). It seems like if it is a similar controller to what’s on the Brewzilla it could be a cheap way to set up an eBIAB controller.

"This plug and play temperature controller box has two clearly marked blue and red power sockets for heating and cooling so you can control a fridge or heating device at the same time to completely monitor and control the temperature. Each power outlet is rated to 10amp (2400 Watt max)."

 

[Matthopperman]

"This plug and play temperature controller box has two clearly marked blue and red power sockets for heating and cooling so you can control a fridge or heating device at the same time to completely monitor and control the temperature. Each power outlet is rated to 10amp (2400 Watt max)."

That just tells me it can turn off and on a heating pad and a fridge -- I want to know if it's a suitable, good choice to control an element for mashing and boiling; i.e, if it's a similar controller to what's in the BrewZilla.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

That just tells me it can turn off and on a heating pad and a fridge -- I want to know if it's a suitable, good choice to control an element for mashing and boiling; i.e, if it's a similar controller to what's in the BrewZilla.

Doubtful, the brewzilla probably using PID logic for co trip. On/off control is a bit more rugged and results in less precise temp control. That’s said I did use an STC to control my mash way back in the day and it was passable, so if that’s all you can afford I’d say give it a go

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Is the RAPT temp controller (regular 10a version) able/suitable to act as a controller for a 2200 watt element for step mashing/boil in the way something like the Brewzilla or a PID controller does? I can’t find much info about it being used to control elements for mashes and boils but it is mentioned in a video about what it can do, and mentioned on the Kegland site (but only for the 15A version). It seems like if it is a similar controller to what’s on the Brewzilla it could be a cheap way to set up an eBIAB controller.

Yes absolutely you can do this. the 15amp and 10amp version of the RAPT temp controller are actually exactly the same besides the cable going into and out of the device. The firmware is the same for each model.

Both the RAPT temp controller and the BrewZilla have the same PID control options.

You can also setup mash profiles the same as the Brewzilla too so yes you can setup the RAPT temp controller as a cheap eBIAB solution.

 

[Matthopperman]

Yes absolutely you can do this. the 15amp and 10amp version of the RAPT temp controller are actually exactly the same besides the cable going into and out of the device. The firmware is the same for each model.

Both the RAPT temp controller and the BrewZilla have the same PID control options.

You can also setup mash profiles the same as the Brewzilla too so yes you can setup the RAPT temp controller as a cheap eBIAB solution.

Great to know. Just to confirm, each outlet can handle 2400w, so a 2200w element is fine in the heating plug as opposed to 1200w each plug?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Great to know. Just to confirm, each outlet can handle 2400w, so a 2200w element is fine in the heating plug as opposed to 1200w each plug?

Yes that is correct. Each outlet can handle 2400w but there is no reason for the heating and cooling to ever come on at the same time so you will never have an instance where you are drawing 2 x 2400watt = 4800watt for instance.

Definitely a 2200watt element is no problem at all.

 

[Yorkie88]

Do kegland recommend/sell any non foaming no rinse sanitizer? Looking for something to use with a keg washer/blaster type of setup - for corny kegs and PET femrenters.
Got the powdered pbw for the cleaning part but was thinking it'd be handy to sanitize it using the bucket and pump too if possible.

I saw the iodine, but is there anything that's along the lines of stellarsan but no foam?

Cheers!

 

[Cian Doyle]

Do kegland recommend/sell any non foaming no rinse sanitizer? Looking for something to use with a keg washer/blaster type of setup - for corny kegs and PET femrenters.
Got the powdered pbw for the cleaning part but was thinking it'd be handy to sanitize it using the bucket and pump too if possible.

I saw the iodine, but is there anything that's along the lines of stellarsan but no foam?

Cheers!

I got my 'no foaming sanitizer' from Keg King

 

[Half-baked]

Do kegland recommend/sell any non foaming no rinse sanitizer? Looking for something to use with a keg washer/blaster type of setup - for corny kegs and PET femrenters.
Got the powdered pbw for the cleaning part but was thinking it'd be handy to sanitize it using the bucket and pump too if possible.

I saw the iodine, but is there anything that's along the lines of stellarsan but no foam?

Cheers!

That’s the phosphoric acid, brand doesn’t matter.

Pros: non-foaming and can be used for pH adjustment

Cons: doesn’t have a surfactant so need to make sure you clean extra well.

Personally I don’t have a sanitation step as part of my keg washing, instead I fill with starsan solution and purge with co2. That sanitises and minimises o2

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I got my 'no foaming sanitizer' from Keg King

If you are looking for a non-foaming sanitizer you can just use the phosphoric acid which KegLand sells for is not only better value that the "low foaming" product from KK but also the concentration you use will be less. I think Keg King sell a product for $13.95 that requires 2.5ml/litre. KegLand sell our Phosphoric acid for $9.95 and you will only require 1ml/litre as it's 85% concentration. It's still a good idea to start with the PBW to clean and then do final rinse with the phosphoric acid at about 1ml per liter dilution. You can continue to re-use the solution as long as the PH stays below 2.4pH. This contains no surfactants but if you are using the bucket blaster or something similar it will be constantly in contact with the walls of the vessel so no surfactants will be required or even desirable.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

That’s the phosphoric acid, brand doesn’t matter.

Pros: non-foaming and can be used for pH adjustment

Cons: doesn’t have a surfactant so need to make sure you clean extra well.

Personally I don’t have a sanitation step as part of my keg washing, instead I fill with starsan solution and purge with co2. That sanitises and minimises o2

NOTE: Many customers forget to de-oxygenate water wen doing the the CO2 purge. Cold water contains a fair amount of oxygen dissolved in the water itself. If you really want to have an O2 free keg you should remember to either use deoxygenated water (via boiling) or alternatively ad scavenger to your sanitiser solution too. This is a step that doesn't get spoken about on many of the videos i've seen online when doing "oxygen free" transfer. I personally think the easier way is to add a very small amount of sodium metabisulfite to the water. This is cheap and it's effective.


I should also say with this statement here I have a different view to you:
"Cons: doesn’t have a surfactant so need to make sure you clean extra well."
You should be cleaning the same irrespective of if you have surfactants or not. The surfactants are really only helping hold the solution to the wall of the fermenter so this is the only difference using surfactants or not. If you have a product that does not use surfactants then you will need to make sure the liquid is in contact with all surfaces for 2 minutes either by filling the container to the brim with the sanitizer or alternatively using agitation such as the bucket blaster to continue to wet all surfaces of the container. If your sanitizer does have surfactants then you can just shake a small amount around the vessel and the surfactant should hold the sanitizer on the wall of the fermenter for a couple minutes.

Additional Warnings about Non-Foaming or Low-Foaming Sanitisers that contain surfactants
As you can imagine surfactants increase the surface tension which is great to hold the product on the wall of the fermenter however they have the negative effect that they also tend to create bubbles which is an issue for CIP systems. So generally speaking if you see a sanitiser that contains surfactants and also says "low" or "no-foaming" just be very careful with the dosage as they will generally have to add a de-foaming agent as well to counteract the foaming nature of the surfactant. If too little of the de-foaming agent is used the sanitiser will still foam and be problematic. If however too much of the de-foaming agent is used the residual amount left in the fermenter can destroy head retention. In my opinion this risk is too high which is why KegLand do not stock any "Non-Foaming" or "Low-Foaming" sanitisers that contain Surfactants and this is also why we just find it safer just to recommend customers purchase the phosphoric acid mentioned above in the previous post which is cheaper anyway.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

That’s interesting I had not considered the O2 in solution of the sanitizer. With that said if you transfer reasonably carefully and maintain a consistent pressure then there should not be any reason the O2 “de-gasses” from solution right? After filling the keg a “pulse purge” of the headspace with CO2 like to 100kPa and down to ~0 kPa 5 times will result in an extremely low amount of any residual O2. I always do the final purge as a belt and braces approach.

I’ve also recently bought some of the Kegland keg oxygen scavenging lid seals for my hoppy beers to see if that gives any additional edge. With those are there any storage requirements or “re-lifeing” of the seals? How long do they last with the scavenging properties before becoming “saturated” in O2?

 

[Yorkie88]

Thanks for the tips! Looks like it might be a can of worms! Didn't mean to start any KK/KL warfare - I'll not mention which PET fermenter I have

Think I'll grab some of the phosphoric acid then, was put off by the serious sounding red text warning on the website but I'll just make sure it's diluted properly when using it.

While we're on the topic of cleaners, is the stellarclean really environmentally friendly? I noticed the label on the lid says something about it being toxic to aquatic life....... should we really be pouring that down the drain? Or is it ok once diluted?

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Thanks for the tips! Looks like it might be a can of worms! Didn't mean to start any KK/KL warfare - I'll not mention which PET fermenter I have

Think I'll grab some of the phosphoric acid then, was put off by the serious sounding red text warning on the website but I'll just make sure it's diluted properly when using it.

While we're on the topic of cleaners, is the stellarclean really environmentally friendly? I noticed the label on the lid says something about it being toxic to aquatic life....... should we really be pouring that down the drain? Or is it ok once diluted?

The Stellarclean is quite safe and decomposes quite fast which one of the things that make it safe to put down the sink. We also do not use any phosphates which is why we state low toxicity to aquatic life. We did test the PBW from Five Star Chemicals and this did contain phosphates so I am not sure how they are selling this in Australia as I believe it's actually illegal since 2014. I should also say there are many good alternatives to phosphates that simply cost slightly more so there is really no reason to use them.

From time to time I hear people using Tricleanium or TSP in brewing too which I also do not understand how this is sold as this also contains phosphates. Maybe the regulators simply just don't care enough. Perhaps a chemist from this forum can jump on here and comment why phosphates are not as regulated as they should be. Maybe I am missing something.

Either way our Stellarclean is better value than both Tricleanium and PBW from Five star. It's also is equally as effective, made from food grade ingredients and doesn't destroy the environment.

With the phosphoric acid its highly dangerous in the concentration that we sell it in which is why we have to put the warning on the label but once it's diluted to 1ml per L it's relatively safe and you can drink it at this concentration. In fact I think Coke has higher concentration of phosphoric acid than 1ml per L.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

That’s interesting I had not considered the O2 in solution of the sanitizer. With that said if you transfer reasonably carefully and maintain a consistent pressure then there should not be any reason the O2 “de-gasses” from solution right? After filling the keg a “pulse purge” of the headspace with CO2 like to 100kPa and down to ~0 kPa 5 times will result in an extremely low amount of any residual O2. I always do the final purge as a belt and braces approach.

I’ve also recently bought some of the Kegland keg oxygen scavenging lid seals for my hoppy beers to see if that gives any additional edge. With those are there any storage requirements or “re-lifeing” of the seals? How long do they last with the scavenging properties before becoming “saturated” in O2?

When you empty the keg of sanitizer the residual liquid (probably about 15-50ml) will contain oxygen that dissolved into this liquid. So even if you very careful this will not help you as the 15-50ml of liquid will become incorporated in the beer itself and thus the oxygen will be in the beer.

This issue is spoken about in commercial breweries all the time but home brewers don't seem to care.

For instance if you use water to rinse your aluminum cans before filling and if you do not use deoxygenated water this will introduce about 20-40ppb of oxygen into the can via the small amount of oxygen dissolved into the droplets of water left on the can wall after rinsing. Generally speaking most breweries will either avoid rinsing the can all together so they can avoid this risk or they will use deoxygenated water. Generally speaking most breweries would try and limit the total oxygen ingress from the packaging process to 100ppb max. So if the water introduces 30ppb this is reasonable amount of your 100ppb already gone. The other way you can look at it is by simply using deoxygenated water your beer will probably last 1-6 months longer in the keg(depending on the o-rings you are using in your corny keg).

 

[clickeral]

Any way to calibrate the Rapt pill when it's in the fermenter

I went through all the calibration steps and it's still massively wrong from a brix perspective

Temp was wrong to start but corrected itself once heaterbelt turned off and yeast had kicked off

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

When you empty the keg of sanitizer the residual liquid (probably about 15-50ml) will contain oxygen that dissolved into this liquid. So even if you very careful this will not help you as the 15-50ml of liquid will become incorporated in the beer itself and thus the oxygen will be in the beer.

This issue is spoken about in commercial breweries all the time but home brewers don't seem to care.

For instance if you use water to rinse your aluminum cans before filling and if you do not use deoxygenated water this will introduce about 20-40ppb of oxygen into the can via the small amount of oxygen dissolved into the droplets of water left on the can wall after rinsing. Generally speaking most breweries will either avoid rinsing the can all together so they can avoid this risk or they will use deoxygenated water. Generally speaking most breweries would try and limit the total oxygen ingress from the packaging process to 100ppb max. So if the water introduces 30ppb this is reasonable amount of your 100ppb already gone. The other way you can look at it is by simply using deoxygenated water your beer will probably last 1-6 months longer in the keg(depending on the o-rings you are using in your corny keg).

I get all of that residual liquid out by inverting the keg for a while then popping the PRV until I get just gas venting. Sometimes this takes a couple cycles of gas.

What about the Low2 keg lid seal question?

 

[Yorkie88]

The Stellarclean is quite safe and decomposes quite fast which one of the things that make it safe to put down the sink. We also do not use any phosphates which is why we state low toxicity to aquatic life. We did test the PBW from Five Star Chemicals and this did contain phosphates so I am not sure how they are selling this in Australia as I believe it's actually illegal since 2014. I should also say there are many good alternatives to phosphates that simply cost slightly more so there is really no reason to use them.

From time to time I hear people using Tricleanium or TSP in brewing too which I also do not understand how this is sold as this also contains phosphates. Maybe the regulators simply just don't care enough. Perhaps a chemist from this forum can jump on here and comment why phosphates are not as regulated as they should be. Maybe I am missing something.

Either way our Stellarclean is better value than both Tricleanium and PBW from Five star. It's also is equally as effective, made from food grade ingredients and doesn't destroy the environment.

With the phosphoric acid its highly dangerous in the concentration that we sell it in which is why we have to put the warning on the label but once it's diluted to 1ml per L it's relatively safe and you can drink it at this concentration. In fact I think Coke has higher concentration of phosphoric acid than 1ml per L.

Thanks again - we're keen divers so I like to check what's going down the drain and potentially into the bay!

Might skip drinking the phosphoric acid, although it might be better than my last batch came out