Filling a pressurized corny keg - what is the best way?

Systems, Gear, & DIY
1

Hi,
I want to do something like this and push beer from my fermenter into pressurized kegs.

http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?11353-Corny-keg-filling&s=2e7b3fe7c05914f008df30c335d08b3e&p=32961#post32961

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Is it OK to fill the keg until beer comes out the gas post?  Seems not very sanitary??

Any other ways to fill a pressurized keg besides a scale? Of course you need a spunding valve to release the pressure.

thanks haeffnkr

2

Are you carbonating in the fermentor?

3

No - in the kegs.

4

If the beer isn’t carbonated at the time of racking, I don’t know that there’s any advantage to pressurizing the receiving keg.

You could just purge it fully (by filling completely with sanitizer and pushing it all out with CO2) and then rack in through the liquid post while running some tubing off the gas post into a container of sanitizer.  It helps with the purging if you trim the gas dip tube.

5

This is what I want to do and is shown in the pic.
How do you know when to stop filling the keg before beer shoots out the gas tube?

thanks

6

Here’s one idea based on the linked probrewer thread in the OP.

Connect a gas QD with a few feet of tubing (nothing connected to far end of the tubing) to receiving keg’s gas post. The end of this tubing can go into a bucket under water (air lock). The air lock will prevent air (oxygen) from going back into the receiving keg.

Transfer into the receiving keg until bubbles stop and beer comes out of the gas line and into the water.

Then serve a few ounces from the receiving keg to lower the liquid level away from the gas post.

7

Fair enough.  The reason the guy in the link is pressurizing the kegs is because he is filling them with beer that is already carbonated.  Without back pressure on the receiving keg, CO2 would start coming out of solution and it’d be a foamy mess.

Pressurizing them alone won’t get rid of all the oxygen though; you’re still going to want to do a proper CO2 purge.

If you chill the beer before you rack it, you will see the line of condensation creeping up the side of the keg as you fill, and it’ll give you a good idea of when it’s full.

8

Just buy a $30 scale.

9

I have tried a digital scale a while back… it was a pain and not real accurate and still had beer coming out the prv and or the gas port.

If beer goes out of the gas post for a bit Is it any worse then having beer go out the liquid side normally?
I originally thought that it was bad… but not sure now?

thanks again haeffnkr

10

I use a scale and love it. Calculators exist to estimate the weight factoring for ABV.

Beer out the liquid isn’t the end of the world, but it will get your gas disconnects, and possible lines, dirty

11

thanks for the ideas.
I will try and setup something like the pic above and have a separate “spill over” keg with the spunding valve on it with dedicated lines as to not contaminate my serving gas lines.

Hoping the effort keep oxygen exposure very low and that will make the beer taste better, especially the hoppy ones.

thanks

12

You don’t need to use the extra keg or spunding valve if the beer is flat. Just connect a gas line and put the end in a bucket.

13

Although if you have an FG reading, hopefully the math is pretty straightforward. :wink:

14

Never thought to multiply 42 by the FG.