moneypitxj
NAXJA Member #565
- Location
- york, pa
go youngs or go home
let's talk about kegging beer
- Thread starter Beezil
- Start date
Rev Den
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Plainfield, IL
Brewmaster said:
Just a warning.....do NOT use the CO2 cylinders made for BB/Pellet guns, simple reason....the Daisy and Crossman ones contain oil and I imagine that may alter the taste. The cylinders for tire refill, and paintball should be OK.
Rev
- Location
- Camden, SC
I have a feeling I'm about to get slammed but here goes! I love beer and would love to learn to brew my own. Where can I get a good starter kit and how much are they?
Brewmaster
NAXJA Forum User
Beezil,
It takes some experimentation but I'll try to give you a head start.
If you're a purist, you can add the priming sugar, wait 3 weeks for the beer to naturally carbonate, then dispense with your bottled CO2. This would most certainly conserve the most CO2, but you'd have to wait the 3 weeks. To give you an idea of how much CO2 you need, It takes something like 2-3 "volumes" of CO2 to carbonate a keg...I have some tables somewhere I clipped from Zymergy magazine. A "volume" means the amount of co2 that would fit in your keg at atmospheric pressure--if I remember correctly. I think a 5lb tank is something like 20 cu/ft of co2, you could do the math to see how many kegs a tank would carbonate.
I'm not a purist by any means so I rack the beer into the keg and pump the co2 pressure up to about 60lbs. The co2 disolves into the beer along the surface of the beer, so if you can maximize this area (by putting the keg on its side) the keg will carbonate faster. You should shake it every 10-20 minutes for an hour or so. CO2 dissolves easier in colder beer, so if you can cool it at the same time as you are carbonating it will go even faster and be cold and ready to drink. After about an hour or more at 60lbs, let off the high pressure with the releif valve then pressure at about 6 lbs or so to dispense a tase. It will foam quite a bit but you can get an idea of how carbonated it is and decide if you want to keep it at 60lbs and shake some more. Once it is carbonated enough, it will foam less and less (bubbles get smaller in size too) the longer it sits.
If you’re not in a hurry, you can just let the keg sit in the fridge with about 20 or so pounds and it will slowly carbonate over 3-5 days and will foam a lot less when you first tap th ekeg.
I’m not sure how accurate my pressure guage is but I usually use between 5 and 10 pounds to dispense. If your beer starts getting flat, you can pump it up to 15 or 20 pounds and let it sit for a day or two. I’ve heard a trick to be able to dispense and keep carbonated but haven’t tried it. Supposedly if you use a very long tube going to your tap with a very small internal diameter like 1/8 or 3/16, you can keep the keg pressure around 15psi to maintain the carbonation and the pressure will drop slowly along the long dispensing tube so it doesn’t foam as it comes out.
If you want to know all the nitty gritty details, I can look up those articles I have and quote you the numbers on how many “volumes” of co2 vs pressure at what temperature, etc.
At this point, I forgot what you asked :doh: , but I hope that covers it.
-Brewmaster
It takes some experimentation but I'll try to give you a head start.
If you're a purist, you can add the priming sugar, wait 3 weeks for the beer to naturally carbonate, then dispense with your bottled CO2. This would most certainly conserve the most CO2, but you'd have to wait the 3 weeks. To give you an idea of how much CO2 you need, It takes something like 2-3 "volumes" of CO2 to carbonate a keg...I have some tables somewhere I clipped from Zymergy magazine. A "volume" means the amount of co2 that would fit in your keg at atmospheric pressure--if I remember correctly. I think a 5lb tank is something like 20 cu/ft of co2, you could do the math to see how many kegs a tank would carbonate.
I'm not a purist by any means so I rack the beer into the keg and pump the co2 pressure up to about 60lbs. The co2 disolves into the beer along the surface of the beer, so if you can maximize this area (by putting the keg on its side) the keg will carbonate faster. You should shake it every 10-20 minutes for an hour or so. CO2 dissolves easier in colder beer, so if you can cool it at the same time as you are carbonating it will go even faster and be cold and ready to drink. After about an hour or more at 60lbs, let off the high pressure with the releif valve then pressure at about 6 lbs or so to dispense a tase. It will foam quite a bit but you can get an idea of how carbonated it is and decide if you want to keep it at 60lbs and shake some more. Once it is carbonated enough, it will foam less and less (bubbles get smaller in size too) the longer it sits.
If you’re not in a hurry, you can just let the keg sit in the fridge with about 20 or so pounds and it will slowly carbonate over 3-5 days and will foam a lot less when you first tap th ekeg.
I’m not sure how accurate my pressure guage is but I usually use between 5 and 10 pounds to dispense. If your beer starts getting flat, you can pump it up to 15 or 20 pounds and let it sit for a day or two. I’ve heard a trick to be able to dispense and keep carbonated but haven’t tried it. Supposedly if you use a very long tube going to your tap with a very small internal diameter like 1/8 or 3/16, you can keep the keg pressure around 15psi to maintain the carbonation and the pressure will drop slowly along the long dispensing tube so it doesn’t foam as it comes out.
If you want to know all the nitty gritty details, I can look up those articles I have and quote you the numbers on how many “volumes” of co2 vs pressure at what temperature, etc.
At this point, I forgot what you asked :doh: , but I hope that covers it.
-Brewmaster
- Location
- Clarkdale, AZ
Well, I don't really know if it's a "good" starter kit, but Mr Beer has one for about $40 with ingredients for one brew. Try www.mrbeer.comGhost said:
Moto
NAXJA Member #576
- Location
- Right Field Bleachers
Good to meet a fellow Jeeper/Brewer. I have also been thinking about kegging, but have been discouraged, because of the lifespan of the minikegs. I would love to have the $ for the fullsize kegging system, but have been detered from that due to the cost, and that I like to share my beer, which it is hard to send people kegged beer if it is in a large keg, and that it has a relatively short life once tapped. I have been reading up and it seems and though most mini keg systems have a limited lifepsan as compared to a glass bottle that can live forever. The solution that I have worked out is just use larger bottles, the stupid little 12 oz bottle are lame, I remember spending HOURS or hard labor cleaning, filling and capping those stupid things, but now I will not use anything smaller than a 22oz bottles plus I mean come on, 16 or 12oz that is just too small to drink. Also, It may just be me, but home kegged beer is just not the same, natural carbonation is the way to go. And on a side note Harpoon IPA is the best damn beer in the world and if anyone can give me a recipe for that, it would be awesome, everytime I try it comes out tasting like a lame ass sam adams