Kevin Wood
Well-Known Member
A little question I've been pondering. Normally, if I brew a batch to dispense from a pressure barrel (King Keg), I fill the barrel straight from the primary FV, prime it with a sugar solution and leave it to condition in the warm, then to clear in the cold before consuming it. I get sediment in the barrel, but it doesn't get disturbed sitting in my garage, so it works fine.
I've promised to make a couple of beers for my cousin's wedding where I'm unlikely to be able to set the keg up to settle for long before dispensing, hence I need to avoid sediment as far as possible. I've brewed the beers and, instead of priming the kegs, filled them from the FV, purged the head space and then pressurised with CO2 from a S30 cylinder and left them to clear. Closer to the time (end of June) I'll maybe transfer them to clean kegs to remove anything that's settled out and, again, purge and pressurise them for dispense with an S30.
I realise that carbonation might be a little lacking, but the beers seem lively enough so far, and they aren't lagers so don't really need to be overly carbonated.
I remember from the days when I used to get polypins of beer from breweries that the beer went off very quickly if it was supplied "bright" as opposed to sedimented.
I've been wondering if I'll encounter a similar issue? I guess what I'm doing is not much different to dispensing from a corny, albeit that I can't use as much pressure to carbonate, but what about the keeping properties of a beer treated in this way? Is it simply that "bright" beer from a brewery has been fined so aggressively that it's completely "dead", or is it that it's been exposed to air when filling the polypin?
I've promised to make a couple of beers for my cousin's wedding where I'm unlikely to be able to set the keg up to settle for long before dispensing, hence I need to avoid sediment as far as possible. I've brewed the beers and, instead of priming the kegs, filled them from the FV, purged the head space and then pressurised with CO2 from a S30 cylinder and left them to clear. Closer to the time (end of June) I'll maybe transfer them to clean kegs to remove anything that's settled out and, again, purge and pressurise them for dispense with an S30.
I realise that carbonation might be a little lacking, but the beers seem lively enough so far, and they aren't lagers so don't really need to be overly carbonated.
I remember from the days when I used to get polypins of beer from breweries that the beer went off very quickly if it was supplied "bright" as opposed to sedimented.
I've been wondering if I'll encounter a similar issue? I guess what I'm doing is not much different to dispensing from a corny, albeit that I can't use as much pressure to carbonate, but what about the keeping properties of a beer treated in this way? Is it simply that "bright" beer from a brewery has been fined so aggressively that it's completely "dead", or is it that it's been exposed to air when filling the polypin?
