Brewing\pressure barrel?

[Clint]

How long will the beer keep before tapping and how long after tapping?

 

[Dutto]

Do any with limited guests use cornies? Do you find having just a couple of beers on tap gets monotonous? I usually have around four or five different brews bottled as I like to mix it up

I too love brewing and drinking a fairly wide variety of brews. At the moment I have five different brews available to drink (six if I count the Spiced Ale which is hopefully mellowing for Christmas and seven if I count the Barley Wine which may never come good).

BTW, I measured the caps on the 10 litre PB's this afternoon and discovered that I can actually fit an S30 CO2 injection fitting into the place where a pressure relief valve is fitted.

This will make them much more flexible when I "retire" the 25 litre ones! :thumb:

 

[Gerryjo]

My last bottle count was 200+...all 500ml...I occasionally don't have enough empty...

You need to drink more.....[emoji481]

Sent from my ALE-L21 using Tapatalk

 

[Clint]

...tonight? I could manage a couple...with a hot curry...on the case!

 

[Dutto]

How long will the beer keep before tapping and how long after tapping?

I've got an Oatmeal Stout with an ABV of >6% that was still good a week ago,after being tapped back in March, ... :thumb:

... but I wouldn't trust a beer to stay good for an ABV below 5%. :no:

 

[Mugatu78]

King kegs all the way for me, closest thing to cask, so ideal for that style of beer. Obvious dewly, nothing is actually like cask, unless you can sup a full barrels worth in a couple of days, as in a pub the beer engine introduces air (deliberately) into the cask, but if you put a decent tap on a top float king Keg, prime / natrualln condition (whatever you want to call it) and occasionally add co2 from an s30 cylinder to replace the CO2 that come out with the beer, it's the best you are going to get at home if real ale is ya thing IMHO.

I hate bottling, but will bottle any style that suits being more heavily carbonated like lager for instance, or anything that suits being bottle conditioned for ages. Or anything super strength, where one will do, in order not to tie up a keg.

Have no experience of cornie kegs, I'm not interested in force conditioning, but I suspect they could be used like king kegs to naturally carb, I just don't have the need at the moment.

Keeping King Kegs at cellar temperature is a challenge, I'll grant, but not impossible.

Hello. New to this done couple batches in bottles and got myself a king keg. Would you say you get enough carbonation for an ipa ?... also roughly how much sugar do you prime with for your king keg ?
Thanks

 

[Mugatu78]

Was going to try force carb as seen a couple people say its possible over time but not sure now if theres any point. I have the s30 and amall co2 bulbs to keep serving pressure

 

[marshbrewer]

In my experience, King Kegs are only capable of producing beer that is relatively low in carbonation, such as traditional British real ale. So, if you like your IPA from a cask hand pull, then it will likely be OK. However, if you prefer the more carbonated 'craft' / American style IPA, then I doubt a king Keg will suit. Force carbing is unlikely in my experience as well, as they can't hold sufficient pressure. I imagine it would take so long, and result in beer that was only mildly carbonated, meaning you would have been better of priming.

Just my opinion!

 

[Mugatu78]

Thats great thanks for the reply. Confirmed what i had thought from what ive been reading. Will prob jist use for scottish 70/80 and bottle the ipa until i can afford corny keg set up. Cheers again. Appreciated

 

[Frogbrew]

Used mine twice, now in my garage, prefer to bottle and chill when I need em. You can have it if you come and collect, Hull.

 

[BridgeBrew]

Wilkos Keg's are better then KKs in my opinion. Got 2 of both. Fitted shrader valve's in lids to monitor pressure, and double up on the blow off band's, and change the tap on the wilko keg's. Has a bit of trouble with the KKs the thread seem's to have stripped on one of them, i initially thought i had a hole in it, but as soon as the pressure reached 3.5lbs the lid would lift on the thread's and release the pressure. No such problems with the wilko's bang on for £30, the plastic is thinner, but had them up to 17 ft lbs no problems.

 

[Mugatu78]

Used mine twice, now in my garage, prefer to bottle and chill when I need em. You can have it if you come and collect, Hull.

Thanks. Im in scotland tho haha

 

[Mugatu78]

Wilkos Keg's are better then KKs in my opinion. Got 2 of both. Fitted shrader valve's in lids to monitor pressure, and double up on the blow off band's, and change the tap on the wilko keg's. Has a bit of trouble with the KKs the thread seem's to have stripped on one of them, i initially thought i had a hole in it, but as soon as the pressure reached 3.5lbs the lid would lift on the thread's and release the pressure. No such problems with the wilko's bang on for £30, the plastic is thinner, but had them up to 17 ft lbs no problems.

Im going to fit the shrader aswell for pressure checking. Thanks

 

[eyuptm]

Hate bottling. No matter how ergonomic you make the setup I always loathed doing it. Washing, sanitising, draining, boxing, storing etc. While I can see the benefits (love opening bottles, long term storage, portability) just not for me. You can also spend quite a lot of money on kit to make bottling easier which isn't really required if you don't bottle. Used to have 6 pressure barrels. Hate them too now. Basically a glorified cask which cannot be chilled. Occasionally fail to hold pressure, O rings are a faff, got to drink the beer warm under gravity dispense in a realistic time frame or add co2 via quite expensive single shot cartridges. I put it down to when I didn't know any better.

I have a corny setup now and love it. It did take me almost 10 years to get to this point. Took a while to pull the lever on buying the bits, but oh man. Bottling 'day' is now less than 30 minutes for two kegs. Easy to move, easy to store, easy to chill and dispense and the beer can stay on for a few months. Figure I spent approx £300, including a chest freezer, greenhouse heater, atc1000 temperature controller and hobby box, mountings etc. The chest freezer is also used for temperature control during fermentation.

Only drawback is if you do some weird beer that requires extended ageing or will take a long time to drink, imperial stouts, bretted IPA's etc (though you start accumulating them, I've got 6) and portability. If I need beer to travel I chill the system down to 0C and pour super restricted flow into pop bottles. Budget growler fill. Suppose I could even purge with co2 prior to filling if the mood took me, but the beer displaces oxygen in the bottle as it fills.

Personally I cannot stand exposing my beer to oxygen and pressure barrels are a joke, bottling junk when making ultra hop forward styles. Bottle conditioning is 2 weeks that beer could have been enjoyed fresher. My fermenters are 5gal plastic food grade jerry cans. I've lids drilled with grommets to take airlocks, grommets to take blow off tubes and one with a corny gas post drilled for the lid and a piece of 15mm rigid polypipe to john guest reducing down to 3/8" with tap with rubber o-ring. I dry hop close to final gravity and the next day swap to a plain lid and roll the can each day during the dry hop before swapping to the gas lid before cold crashing.

I sanitise my kegs with boiling water followed by peracetic acid. I seal them up and check for leaks then use gas to push the acid out. Pressurise and vent the keg several times to dilute the normal atmosphere left behind leaving an inert co2 one. Then I hook the fermenter to the keg via the beer side and let the keg bleed pressure from the gas post. A bit of positive pressure in the fermenter and gravity starts a siphon and the keg venting allows pressure to exit. Bringing the pressure up on the fermenter using gas as needed if gravity isn't enough until I've got all the beer and carefully adjusting the height of the racking cane to avoid yeast, trub, dry hop etc and I'm there .. closed pressure transfer under inert gas.

Why do this? Because dissolved oxygen messes up your stupid craft murk jooce like nobodies business. Not uncommon for me to use 16g/L in the boil and 20g/L when dry hopping. Like I'm putting that in a pressure barrel to be drunk warm or a bottling bucket.

Great write up, similar to what I was planning. Where do you get the "fermenting vessels" from? I assume they take a bit of pressurising, a bit like the Frementasaurus? I'm not averse to getting the tools out and making things work, so this could be the way to go for me!!
Again, thanks for your thoughts.

 

[stz]

Great write up, similar to what I was planning. Where do you get the "fermenting vessels" from? I assume they take a bit of pressurising, a bit like the Frementasaurus? I'm not averse to getting the tools out and making things work, so this could be the way to go for me!!
Again, thanks for your thoughts.

Sorry for the late reply! If you search plastic jerry cans you'll find pictures identical/similar to what I use. The ones I use are marked for 25L and will take close to 30L brimmed. If I fill them very full I'll put something underneath them (like a tin of beans) to tilt them at an angle which gives a little more headspace before you reach the cap. though 25L fill usually gives plenty of wiggle room for transferring without any hops/yeast/trub. I'm lucky in that I can get them free from work in an almost infinite supply. When they get old or if I can't be bothered to clean them I cut the top off or side, drill a few drain holes and use them for growing vegetables, but the modified caps are worth saving and reusing because they are a little work to make. Actually I am more likely to have a picture of that than using them to brew, I'll have a look.

I wouldn't pay proper money for them. If I wanted to find some I'd probably try a local brewery, we stack a pallet of 36 to return every few weeks. Pretty much all our chemicals, finings, process aids, additives etc come in them and only one supplier requires and returns a deposit, the rest will collect, but give no credit for them. They are food grade too.

For the corny bulkhead/fittings try ebay and china. Search for corny bulkhead or similar. I think I paid about £5 for each fitting. To be honest if you drill a tight hole and/or use a grommet you can get away with a simple siphon. You just need a fairly stiff piece to act as the dip tube and a way to let something in to prevent a vacuum. I like to use a gas post, 15mm poly pipe, 15mm to 3/8" push fit, but 3/8" pipe and a light touch on a regulator alongside a piece of silicone tubing will still do it. You can even let it pull air if you believe in the power of the co2 blanket. I don't, tend to imagine gases mixing like milk in tea!