What's The Actual Volume Of A Corny Keg?

[Thirsty Boy]

I have been trying to work out why the hell I cant fill my corny kegs properly from my fermenters. The fermenters are quite accurately calibrated, so is my brewpot etc... I make 21-22 L of beer and leave a litre or so in the fermenter... and my bloody cornies are still inches from the top. I keep thinking I must have cocked up the calibration.. but no, I double checked this morning when filling a fermenter with blond ale... within a few 100ml of accurate.

I reckon (and have read a few things that suggest) that the cornies are closer to 22.5L (6US gallons) if you fill em all the way to the brim.

Has anyone ever measured one? I really want to know and I don't want to waste the 20 or so litres of water I would need to find out.

TB

 

[Bribie G]

I fill mine to within a cm of the bottom of the little gas post that sticks down and generally get:

23 L brew = corny + 3 tallies + waste
25 L brew = corny + 5 or 6 tallies + waste

give or take because with a UK ale I more often than not have a pint straight out of the conditioning cube as I go B)

 

[ozpowell]

My experience is that you can squeeze an extra litre of two into them, but you will be submerging the "gas in" dip-tube, running the risk of getting beer in your gas line.

 

[Steve]

I fill to the weld line with 19 litres.
Cheers
Steve

 

[kirem]

sorry for the slight hijack, what does a 50L CUB keg hold? I recall for excise it is 45L.

I had similar issues with unknown corny volume. I used to put as much as I can into the kegs until I sucked beer into the gas line (before I put non-returns on them).

I put the keg on a set of scales and filled with water until it read 19L, almost exactly on the weld.

I do a similar thing when I filter under pressure, I put the source keg on scales, that way I can go away and do other things and quickly look and see how many litres left to filter.

I know its not exact due the SG of beer and you could work it out based on SG but it is close enough for me.

 

[QldKev]

I always make up 25L, cause I find I can fill a corny, and a few bottles, or even for standard beers, ales/pils/etc throw the remaining into my dregs kegs.

QldKev

 

[bradsbrew]

I always make up 25L, cause I find I can fill a corny, and a few bottles, or even for standard beers, ales/pils/etc throw the remaining into my dregs kegs.

QldKev

Kev when you say "dreg Keg" is this a keg that is carbed up and you just add the left overs and let it recarb. if so appart from the obvious tastes of different beers does it effect the beer.

Cheers

 

[Screwtop]

I fill to the weld line with 19 litres.
Cheers
Steve

+1

Usually 22L batches in the FV, the rest goes in the bits keg.

Screwy

 

[Screwtop]

is this a keg that is carbed up and you just add the left overs and let it recarb.

My Bits keg is carbed. When I say carbed I mean it is carbonated to some level, I hit the kegs with 300Kpa when they go into the conditioning fridge (freezer actually), they are not connected to gas while conditioning. Occasionally I run over the kegs giving them all a squirt at 300Kpa. Once the bits keg is full it goes on tap. As my kegs in the conditioning fridge have some carbonation albeit low, they carb up quite quickly.

After kegging the left over beer in the FV is decanted to a jug. To add the green beer to the bits keg I purge gas, open up and pour in the beer, stop early if it froths and get the lid on quick. I keg my beers at low temps, they have been sitting at 2 degrees or so prior to kegging to drop out the yeast, the weird thing is when adding to the bits keg some beers froth up and some don't, go figure. After topping up hit it with 300Kpa as per other conditioning kegs.

Strange thing is, everyone loves the beer from the bits keg, never tastes the same but is always good. Pouring the beer in should result in oxidation maybe? but it doesn't ever taste oxidised. Everything, Ales, Lagers, dark and pale, strong and light and even Weizens they all go in. I have even added green beer to it while on tap, just remove the gas, purge and open the keg, add the green beer from the FV and close up, gas on and back on tap.

Screwy

 

[QldKev]

Kev when you say "dreg Keg" is this a keg that is carbed up and you just add the left overs and let it recarb. if so appart from the obvious tastes of different beers does it effect the beer.

Cheers

When I brew I always run more than 1 fermentor at a time; and they all start/finish at the same time. So most of the time I will have 2 or 3 fermentors being kegged at 1 time, so the dregs keg normally starts off empty and gets it's volume from at 1 time; if all the brews are similar in style. Allowing sometimes the dregs keg may only end up with half volume. I have come up with some really nice mixed brews; but have never actually bothered to document them, which is something I should start to do.

I have also had a half keg of an Aussie Ale that was boring, so I've made an IPA and threw half of it into the boring ale to spice it up, and it worked a treat. I found no side effects to the beer from adding non carb'd beer, except I had to wait for the carb levels again. (I always just carb up at serving pressure). Obviously when you rack into the keg as per normal you don't want any splashing.

I've never tried mixing extremely different styles before, eg a Wizen with a Pils, but if could come out with a totally new style.


QldKev

 

[mfeighan]

When I brew I always run more than 1 fermentor at a time; and they all start/finish at the same time. So most of the time I will have 2 or 3 fermentors being kegged at 1 time, so the dregs keg normally starts off empty and gets it's volume from at 1 time; if all the brews are similar in style. Allowing sometimes the dregs keg may only end up with half volume. I have come up with some really nice mixed brews; but have never actually bothered to document them, which is something I should start to do.

I have also had a half keg of an Aussie Ale that was boring, so I've made an IPA and threw half of it into the boring ale to spice it up, and it worked a treat. I found no side effects to the beer from adding non carb'd beer, except I had to wait for the carb levels again. (I always just carb up at serving pressure). Obviously when you rack into the keg as per normal you don't want any splashing.

I've never tried mixing extremely different styles before, eg a Wizen with a Pils, but if could come out with a totally new style.


QldKev

*shudders* dregs keg reminds me of some drinking games that i would rather forget.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

OK - so 19L on the weld, which means 20-21 right up to the gas in tube and maybe 22ish chock-a-block full.

Kirk - I'm pretty sure its 49.5L for a CUB keg (I'll look tonight) it has to be a "49L or greater" volume to qualify for the large container excise rate.

Thanks guys.

TB

PS - has anyone else thought about shortening the gas in diptube?? I have a short one and it seems to do no harm. The length serves no purpose and reduces the effective volume of each keg... I think I'm gonna cut them all off so they dont protrude into the keg at all.

 

[Bribie G]

Now that's thinking outside the square. I wonder why the tube anyway, one imagines that it has some purpose in the original use of the cornies to hold syrups?

 

[kirem]

I have a short one and it seems to do no harm. The length serves no purpose and reduces the effective...

hmmmm....

sorry couldn't help myself.

 

[Snow]

My Bits keg is carbed. When I say carbed I mean it is carbonated to some level, I hit the kegs with 300Kpa when they go into the conditioning fridge (freezer actually), they are not connected to gas while conditioning. Occasionally I run over the kegs giving them all a squirt at 300Kpa. Once the bits keg is full it goes on tap. As my kegs in the conditioning fridge have some carbonation albeit low, they carb up quite quickly.

After kegging the left over beer in the FV is decanted to a jug. To add the green beer to the bits keg I purge gas, open up and pour in the beer, stop early if it froths and get the lid on quick. I keg my beers at low temps, they have been sitting at 2 degrees or so prior to kegging to drop out the yeast, the weird thing is when adding to the bits keg some beers froth up and some don't, go figure. After topping up hit it with 300Kpa as per other conditioning kegs.

Strange thing is, everyone loves the beer from the bits keg, never tastes the same but is always good. Pouring the beer in should result in oxidation maybe? but it doesn't ever taste oxidised. Everything, Ales, Lagers, dark and pale, strong and light and even Weizens they all go in. I have even added green beer to it while on tap, just remove the gas, purge and open the keg, add the green beer from the FV and close up, gas on and back on tap.

Screwy

I love this idea! Now that I've just bought 4 of Ross's kegs, I have 9 kegs and this is now feasible. It would be an interesting experiment to brew a beer with the yeast dregs from the bottom of a finished dregs keg and see what kind of frankenstein beer you would end up with

Cheers - Snow.

 

[jonocarroll]

PS - has anyone else thought about shortening the gas in diptube?? I have a short one and it seems to do no harm. The length serves no purpose and reduces the effective volume of each keg... I think I'm gonna cut them all off so they dont protrude into the keg at all.

There's a gas diptube? I haven't really looked that closely.

Assuming a radius of r = 1cm (vast overestimate, yeah?), length h = 30cm long (another overestimate, yeah?), that would take up π r^₂ h ~ 94mL. A more suitable radius might be 0.5cm, for a volume of 24mL.

Is this really of great concern?

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I fill my kegs until either it looks like I cannot squeeze any more out of the fermenter or it starts bubbling out the PRV. I use non-return valves on the gas lines, so I don't see an issue unless I am wanting to carbonate in a hurry, which I am training myself to not do.

I've often wondered how much I was squeezing into the keg (not enough to do anything about it of course) because it didn't quite gel with what I thought I was putting into the fermenter...

 

[porky]

PS - has anyone else thought about shortening the gas in diptube?? I have a short one and it seems to do no harm. The length serves no purpose and reduces the effective volume of each keg... I think I'm gonna cut them all off so they dont protrude into the keg at all.

I have cut all mine off so they don't protrude into the keg at all. No problems.
When I go up to the shed I will measure how much a keg holds....this has got me wondering....

Cheers,
bud

 

[Tony M]

A corny holds 19 litre to the bottom of rhe gas tube and 19.5 litre to the bottom of the gasket housing. I measured it by weight.

 

[bradsbrew]

I fill it as much as i can without it being to full for the lid to go back in without beinging dipped in the beer.