I am usually a practical (cough, lazy) homebrewer who doesn’t enjoy construction projects. I have been happy with using picnic taps in my keezer. However, you are all pressuring (pun intended) me, with your beautiful keezer build photos, to build a collar/multi-faucet setup.
I plan to use a 3 way manifold and will not have multiple regulators to start. For serving, I will just pick a CO2 volume range that will work well with a broad range of styles. But how should I carbonate a new keg when the others are already fully carbonated?
Set it and forget it obviously works, but I usually use the 30 psi for 48 hours method. Could I just cease dispensing beer for 48 hours and send 30 psi to one keg, and shut off the valves for the other two? As long as I’m not pouring beer and there are no leaks, the kegs shouldn’t bleed pressure. Right?
My other idea was just to buy a 5 lb tank for charging the kegs. What methods do you all use?
I do a hybrid of what others have suggested. I shut off the gas to the other kegs and dial pressure up to about 10-12 PSI greater than serving pressure. I attach the gas line to the IN post of the keg, purge the keg with CO2, then turn the keg upside-down and shake for about 3-4 minutes. After that, I put the keg into the serving fridge (right side up, of course) with the others and return it and the rest to serving pressure. Typically, the new keg settles in to proper carbonation after 5-7 days. This makes things faster than set-n-forget, but doesn’t over-carb.
A friend of mine tried to sell me on the idea for a year before I finally relented. Wished I had done that from the beginning. Talk about convenient and you have a backup tank in case your main one surprises you with emptiness.
With a wye splitter on your fiver you can charge up two kegs at once, keep a long line attached to easily CO2-flush kegs and carboys, quickly flush and carb while room temp dry-hopping, etc.
That can cause overall equipment growth, though…I now have 2 ten pounders and a 5 pounder, four regulators, two distributors, two chest freezers with external thermostats, and two beer dedicated refrigerators…so just keep that possibility in mind!
The kegs should hold pressure for a few days (really, many more). If they don’t, fix them. That said, a second small tank is useful. Bring it to parties, pressurize kegs that don’t fit in the kegerator, pressurize kegs when cleaning to push sanitizer through tubes. I wish I had one.
+1 to this, ive kegged one batch at this point and now have a 5lb, 2.5lb and just ordered a 20lb tank. Ill keep the 20lber for the keezer with the 5lb as a backup and lug the 2.5lb around for parties. Thankfully i inheritated 2 of them