Getting back into brewing after 10 yrs.

I brewed small batches from kits with some success 10+ yrs. ago.  I quit while raising my daughter on my own plus all my brewing stuff was stolen.  I spent the last 9+ yrs. building a stand alone brewing facility with a good ole friend of mine.  We finally finished it and brewed up two 5 gal. batches over the holidays.

We will be transferring from Carboy to Soda Kegs soooon.  I have some questions about this transfer.  Can someone direct me to some post about this?

Thanks for having an open forum.

Best,
AR. Dave

Hi AR Dave,

I don't have any specific references at hand, but when I got into kegging a couple of years ago I found some good summary articles on some of the homebrew vendors websites.  As well there are lots of good videos on youtube.

Basically all I do is as follows  ……..

- crash cool the carboy for a few days just prior to kegging and add gelatin (unless I'm doing a porter).    I don't think it is that important to crash cool, but I have the ability to do it, so I do!  I believe it helps avoid chill haze - I always get perfectly clear beers.

- even though I dismantle and clean the kegs as soon as they are empty,  I repeat the process before refilling them.  I use a flap type brush on a drill to clean the inside of the keg as well as sponges.

Includes pulling the posts off, rinsing al the parts in star san and lubing all the seals with food grade lubricant (replacing any that look to be in need.)

I also bought a special long brush to make sure the inside of the dip tube is completely clean.

After I re-assemble the cleaned keg parts , I slosh a few cups of star san around inside the keg then drain it.

- next,  I hook up the CO2 to the keg with the lid off and saran wrap over the lid opening and give it a few shots of CO2 (heavier than air) to fill the keg with CO2 - that way, if the incoming beer splashes around, there is no oxygen to be absorbed

- I now use a sanitized auto siphon to fill the keg.

- when the keg is filled, before putting on the lid, I use a "wine thief" to take a hydrometer sample to check my final gravity.  Some folks say not to return the sample to the keg in case of contamination,  but I always use a well cleaned  and sanitized hydrometer well so I do return the sample  to the keg.  Never had a problem ………. yet!

- Now I put the lid on the keg and pressurize to about ten psi.

- I do a soap bubble test, mainly around the lid gasket, but also the safety valve and all my gas connections to ensure no leaks. I have lost a few bottle of gas through not being careful enough!)

-  I pull the safety valve a few times to purge the headspace in the keg and ensure that there is only CO2 in there.

- now back in the fridge it goes with the gas connected for a week or so at about 39F to carbonate.


I think that is everything!    Hope it helps.  There is nothing to it once you have done it a couple of times!

Good luck …………….  Brian.



PS - one small tip I have learned!  Whenever you hook a gas line up to a full keg of beer, it is not a bad idea to pull the safety valve first and drop the pressure in the keg.


Why?  because if you don't and if it happens that your beer level in the keg is above the bottom of the short  "gas in"  tube in the keg,  and if the pressure in your keg is greater than the pressure in your gas line, then when you snap the connector on, you will get beer forced into your gas line!

There will most likely be a check valve that will prevent the beer from backing up into your gas regulator and casing more serious problems,  but even so, you don't want beer residue in your gas lines which could possibly cause problems with future batches.

This has happened to me a couple of times before I smartened up (no guarantee it won't happen again though!). Whenever it has  happened,  I have dismantled the gas lines  and throughly cleaned and dried them.






 

Thanks Wingeezer for a great response and summary of procedure.  It was helpful.

Please elaborate on - crash cooling the carboy for a few days just prior to kegging.  I'm assuming that refer's to Co2 'ing it?  What about adding gelatin? And why not with a porter?    You said, "I believe it helps avoid chill haze - I always get perfectly clear beers."

What can be said more about "chill haze"?

We are coming up on 8 days of yeast activity on the first 5 g batch, anniversary ale.  It was a kit batch with grain/sack and dry malt cake, hops and moss.  Right now it is barley producing constant bubbling from the airlock in the carboy.

I hesitate to do anything at this time. It's cold and a struggle to aintain 65 degrees where it's at. I think it's to soon to transfer.  I want to take a new hydrometer reading but don't like the idea of opening up the beer to air.  Any thoughts on this?

I've read on here, a person could let it go, to do nothing for up to 5 weeks! Really? Then some say, transfer to 2ndary ferminter as soon as it stops showing signs of first fermentation.  I do want to wait until then to take a reading and then transfer. At this time I'll be boiling a sample of the wart to my priming sugar, allowing it to cool and putting it in our 5 g soda keg then siphoning in the wart.

My question is at this point do I transfer to my soda keg, what's the right next step?  Do I purge it through with CO2 and allow a secondary fermintation at 65 to 70 degree non refrigerated in it or  do I directly start carbing and chilling it in this soda keg to around 35 to 39?

What's the procedure, deciding factors or choices if anything?

OzarkBrewer said:

...It's cold and a struggle to maintain 65 degrees where it's at.

Click to expand...

Move it to a warmer place in the house - closet near an outside wall, bathroom - whatever can maintain a fairly constant temperature in the 68-70 F range or thereabouts. The goal here is to allow the wort to warm up just a bit near the end of fermentation to ensure the yeast have a good fighting chance to finish the job and clean up after themselves. Keeping it cool at the begging of fermentation (near the bottom of the recommended temperature range for that particular yeast strain) will ensure a nice clean fermentation with little or no yeast-derived off-flavors or aromas.

OzarkBrewer said:

...I want to take a new hydrometer reading but don't like the idea of opening up the beer to air.  Any thoughts on this?

Click to expand...

With good sanitation, you can pull the lid, take a reading, secure the lid, and all is well. By 'good" I mean "GOOD" - spray the perimeter of the lid with Star-San (good stuff, by the way!) make sure your hands are clean (I spray my hands as well with the Star-San) and spray the hydrometer. Don't cough or sneeze over the open fermenter (I wouldn't even breath in that general direction). Doing this in a clean draft-free room is recommended as well.

OzarkBrewer said:

My question is at this point do I transfer to my soda keg, what's the right next step?  Do I purge it through with CO2 and allow a secondary fermintation at 65 to 70 degree non refrigerated in it or  do I directly start carbing and chilling it in this soda keg to around 35 to 39?

What's the procedure, deciding factors or choices if anything?

Click to expand...

There's really no need to transfer to a secondary, contrary to what you may have read or learned in the past, unless you are dry-hopping or adding a fining agent, and even then; dry-hopping can be done in the primary, and fining can be done in the keg. You have options, but the less you transfer, the less chance you have of introducing unwanted bugs or oxygen.

Wait for fermentation to finish (evidenced by constant hydrometer readings over at least two days) and then give it a few more days to be sure the yeast have cleaned up their mess, then clean and sanitize your keg, purge it with CO2, and transfer the wort from the primary to the keg and begin carbing. That's the simple answer. Again; you have lots of options, but this'll get you there.

thanks Philm63!