New to Brewing, wanting to move over to Kegging

[Nathan McCann]

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been discussed already before but I've spent ages looking through older posts and seem to be getting nowhere.

I have made a few batches of both Beer and Cider already and gone through the whole bottling process to pretty good results. I'm wanting to move across to kegs but unsure of a few steps.

One the brew has done in the fermentor, do I need to drop it's temp to around 4 degrees before it goes into the Keg to carbonate, or can I fill the keg, fridge it and wait for the temp to drop then apply gas?

This next question might be dumb, once it goes into the Keg, then does it still need to age, just like the bottles did before the first drink?

Thanks in Advance

 

[Dan Pratt]

Hi Nathan,

You can keg the beer warm, chill it to 4c and then commence carbonation. Co2 is more soluble when the beer is cold.

Ageing the beer wont be required, once carbonated its ready for serving.

 

[captnhaddock]

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been discussed already before but I've spent ages looking through older posts and seem to be getting nowhere.

I have made a few batches of both Beer and Cider already and gone through the whole bottling process to pretty good results. I'm wanting to move across to kegs but unsure of a few steps.

One the brew has done in the fermentor, do I need to drop it's temp to around 4 degrees before it goes into the Keg to carbonate, or can I fill the keg, fridge it and wait for the temp to drop then apply gas?

This next question might be dumb, once it goes into the Keg, then does it still need to age, just like the bottles did before the first drink?

Thanks in Advance

The advantage to chilling before racking is that you'll force a lot of yeast and other heavy particles to precipitate out of the solution and drop to the bottom of the fermentor, allowing you to rack nearly clear beer.

Further, you can then begin force carb'ing right away with cold beer, vs waiting for it to chill down. I would also recommend that as soon as you do rack to keg, that you put pressure on the keg, so as to ensure that you're limiting your oxygen exposure as much as possible.

 

[Nathan McCann]

Hi Nathan,

You can keg the beer warm, chill it to 4c and then commence carbonation. Co2 is more soluble when the beer is cold.

Ageing the beer wont be required, once carbonated its ready for serving.

Dan,

Does that also apply for doing ciders and whatnot?

 

[brewgasm]

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been discussed already before but I've spent ages looking through older posts and seem to be getting nowhere.

I have made a few batches of both Beer and Cider already and gone through the whole bottling process to pretty good results. I'm wanting to move across to kegs but unsure of a few steps.

One the brew has done in the fermentor, do I need to drop it's temp to around 4 degrees before it goes into the Keg to carbonate, or can I fill the keg, fridge it and wait for the temp to drop then apply gas?

This next question might be dumb, once it goes into the Keg, then does it still need to age, just like the bottles did before the first drink?

Thanks in Advance

You can keg it warm like the above reply (its what I do most of the time) sometimes I cold crash the fermentor for a few days before kegging. The benifit is more stuff will drop out of suspension in the fermentor rather than the keg and you can commence carbonation as soon as you keg.

Yes you can drink your beer as soon as it is carbed but many beers will benifit from a week or two of cold conditioning. If you like what's coming out of the tap then it's ready