a few months ago upgraded my cold storage to handle 10/12 cornys, but only have 2 leads coming off my tank, so I pressurize after filling the kegs, purge the headspace 5 or 6 long pulls, drop them into cold storage. I’ll keep the pressure on 2 of the ones I want to carb up. Once the pressurized headspace co2 gets absorbed, what takes its place? vacuum? o2 pulled in from the lid? The reason I ask is having an oxidation problem. Never had it before this. All transfers from kettle to glass are closed with forced co2 onto blanketed co2. Co2 distribution banks (if that what they are called) are pretty pricy and I don’t look forward to a dozen leads. How about if I pressurize the stored ones with nitrogen instead, I have that already.
It would be a PITA but you could jus ttop off the kegs not connected regularly so the headspace doesn’t reach equilibrium with the atmosphere. even before the beer is fully carbed it will be carbed enough to hold positive pressure.
If you’re simply filling kegs and sitting on them to free a tap, why not just naturally carb in the keg?
an excellent suggestion!
Some lids are fine once seated, others will let air in once the pressure drops. It takes some $, but you can put a manifold and distribution system in the keezer. Some call it the “octopus”.
I was planning to hit them with co2 daily in the beginning, and I did for a bit but the PITA/lazy/forgot kicked in.
Natural carbing the others should fix it. How much beer do you lose to that process? Probly less than 5 gallons, which is where I am at now
Hopefully solved the leaky lid problem. Bought some .325 super compressible BunaN and glued up some orings. The originals orings are .275. Makes the bale really tight.
You don’t lose any beer to natural carbing, its no different than priming when bottling. You just use half the amount of priming sugar you would if you were bottling.
The beer will simply carbonate in the keg and essentially be ready when you’re set to put it in the kegerator assuming you let it sit at 70oF for 7-14 days.
You still purge the keg with co2 prior to racking the beer but the co2 created by priming will eliminate the oxidation issue in any headspace there may be.
If I’m filling a keg for later, I’ll push it to 35-40 psi then disconnect. Some of the co2 will dissolve, but there will be enough head pressure after equilibrium to hold the seal.
Heard you have to cut your out tube short to miss the sediment?
Im a little hesitant at room temps after listening to Bamforth’s interview. Maybe without cause
You can, or you can just accept that the first pint will be cloudy. It’s not that big a deal.
Anybody thoughts on just putting them under nitrogen?
Manifold is the simple solution. You can go cheap and use y’s or t’s as well
You could use nitrogen. Or you could hit the keg with 30lbs CO2 for a few hours. Then disconnect and that keg will stay pressurized until you’re ready to carbonate it. And like Steve said, you can get T-fittings pretty cheap and easily have 4 or more connections.
And to answer the question about CO2 in the headspace - eventually CO2 in the beer and headspace reach equilibrium, but some headspace CO2 will always remain and you won’t have a vacuum.
Thanks guys. Going cheap with T’s, would there be a psi drop by the end of the line, and uneven carbonation? if there is that problem I guess its fixed by shelling out the bucks for a real distribution system?
There shouldn’t be any difference. T’s do have one major drawback. When hooking-up a keg that has been recently jostled, foam my rise up through the gas post and spread through the lines. The fix for this is to relieve the head pressure before connecting to the keg. Quality manifolds have the added benefit of check valves that help to prevent this backflow.
Gas pressure will be even regardless of line length or normal line diameters. You shouldn’t see any difference in carbonation. Liquid would be a different story.
That was a pretty dumb question by me on the gas pressure drop. Of course it wont. I’ll think, then post next time.
Some random thoughts:
With a bunch of "t"s you get all the same pressure over all the kegs, regardless of style.
Unless you put check valves throughout the system, a leak in one keg could run you flat over the whole system.
When you add a new keg, you’ll have to hope (& you’ll probably be fine but…) that the new keg doesn’t pull gas (or worse liquid) out of your other kegs.
If you naturally carbonate, & you have a keg that doesn’t seat well, you might want to give it a small charge to get the seal, until the yeast build up the pressure enough to keep the seal.
+1, checking every few weeks by tapping the relief valve to make sure it’s still under pressure.
Some thoughts on beverage gasses…
Co2 is heavier than O2 so a keg that has lost pressure Co2 will retain its Co2 and blanket the beer unless it is disturbed. And when I say heavier, I mean you can pour Co2 out of a jug and into another. I saw a youtube video a while back where someone extinguished a candle that way. Pretty interesting and reassuring. As far as Nitrogen goes, Nitrogen is lighter than Co2 and can be used as a gas to displace O2 just like Co2, so why bother with it if Co2 is already on hand/available.