King Keg advice

[Kinleycat]

Purchased a top tap king keg yesterday with a Hambleton Bard gas cylinder.
I've got two brews on, Cerveza and Stout.
Which will be best in the Keg?
Once said brew is in keg do i need to add gas straight away?
I planned to leave in FB for about ten to fourteen days then syphon in to the keg with some sugar for secondary, does that sound right?
Cheers :
KC :thumb:

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Put the stout in the keg.
With approx 85g of sugar.
You dont need gas straight away (I give it a little squirt, with the lid off, just to lay dwn a blanket of CO2)

 

[fbsf]

Yup, Stout in the keg, bottle the lager.

Gas will only be required when the keg is below about 2/3rds, or when the flow from the tap slows a little.

When that happens, just give it a 1-second squirt to re-pressurise it. You might need to do this another 2/3 times during drinking the rest of the keg.

 

[orlando]

A tip that I have incorporated into mine is to drill the cap and add a tyre valve, that way you can monitor the pressure and make sure you don't over do it.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

A tip that I have incorporated into mine is to drill the cap and add a tyre valve, that way you can monitor the pressure and make sure you don't over do it.

Unessacary (sp) Never could spell that word...the red rubber band is the release valve, and you will know if there is no pressure. because the beer wont come out

 

[orlando]

A tip that I have incorporated into mine is to drill the cap and add a tyre valve, that way you can monitor the pressure and make sure you don't over do it.

Unessacary (sp) Never could spell that word...the red rubber band is the release valve, and you will know if there is no pressure. because the beer wont come out

That's not the point I'm making. I find it useful to keep track of pressure because if you let it get too low there is a danger the tap will draw air back into it with the potential of stirring up sediment and leading to an early staling of the beer. The main point is a safety one a "quick squirt" is a little imprecise, this way you can really fine tune your beer dispensing. The valves are negligible (I got mine free) the drilling takes a few seconds. It really is the cheapest and most useful mod you can make to a keg.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear. The drilling of a KK top tap to tell you what the pressure inside the barrel is a compete and utter waste of time. Why would you want to know this?

 

[Sandimas]

Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear. The drilling of a KK top tap to tell you what the pressure inside the barrel is a compete and utter waste of time. Why would you want to know this?

I dunno - OK if you're drinking it straight away and checking pressure regularly, but if you're leaving the keg a month or three to mature before drinking, it's good to have some indicator of pressure. I've had seals fail over time on my King Keg twice now during the maturing process and found that all the gas had escaped leaving the beer pretty ruined.

 

[Wezzel]

+1 for tyre valve. Excellent idea. Works like a dream and highlights the unreliability of the pressure relief valve which sometimes goes well over the recommended 10psi.

This is my regime:

After kegging I give the keg a shot of co2 and leave for 10 minutes or so to give the air a chance to rise to the top. I then purge out most of the pressure using the tyre valve (monitoring with a digital tyre gauge) to leave the keg at about 2.5 or 3psi (which is about the minimum pressure my gauge will read at).

I check the keg 2 or 3 times during the first 24 hours to make sure that it is holding pressure and not leaking, after which I check it once a day. After a couple of days it usually climbs at about 1psi per day.

When the pressure is up to 8 or 9psi I put it into the garage for conditioning. The pressure usually drops a little at first due to the lower temperatures but then starts to climb slightly.

I check the pressure every couple of days to make sure that it doesn't rise about 10 or 11psi and risk damaging the keg.

It is important to note that the relief valves are not terribly accurate and are there to prevent a major explosion. I caught one of my kegs at 15psi once and there was no sign of the relief valve kicking in.

johnnyboy1965 please don't dismiss this idea as a waste of time. It works well for many of us and helps take a lot of the guesswork out of using a keg. A huge number of posts on this forum relate to keg pressure problems and this is an excellent solution.