To the Keg we go!

I wanted to give the latest update on the beer we had in process so here we go. The beer clarified nicely in the secondary fermenter for a week. It looked beautiful, and the specific gravity had not changed beyond our second reading of 1.012. So it was time to move it to the Keg and ultimately the kegerator.  One thing that needs to be stressed when handling homebrew is sanitation. If any bacteria gets into your batch you can lose it all from a taste perspective. My husband disagrees, but he has also been known to win bets guzzling ketchup, uh, where was I. So the first thing we have to do to is to sanitize the keg. We use a two phase cleaning ritual, PBW powder and Star-san. PBW first, to power clean the surfaces, then Star-san, an easy product to use, and you don't have to worry about any of the suds being left behind as they are not harmful to the process. It is commonly said, don't fear the foam :) .

The infamous Corny Keg.

Having a bucket full of sanitizer on hand to rinse anything that needs to be handled.

An easy way to remember left and right, or in and out connections. Set up two bowls of sanitizer for the smaller parts.

So after the Keg and assorted equipment is sanitized it's time to move it directly from fermenter number two to the keg. This is accomplished with a syphon. In this case it is a auto-syphon (MUCH more sanitary than trying to start a syphon with your mouth) and it makes the whole process pretty easy. The only thing that you need to keep in mind is to make sure the bottom of the auto-syphon does not touch the bottom of the carboy where the left over yeast cake is sitting. You are trying to leave the sediment in the carboy but take all of the beautiful beer you can get. And yes that is another batch of beer sitting up there with the beer we are moving. We started a new batch of a Christmas Ale that we found and enjoy.

After all of the beer is transferred to the keg you close it up and put it where it will get cold, either a refrigerator or in our case the kegerator. We charge it slightly with Co2 and "burp" it. This releases the air (oxygen) out of the keg. At this pointt the beer is pretty safe from any contaminates and can be cold stored for long periods (right, like that will happen) .Tomorrow we will hook it up to the Co2 so it can begin carbonating the beer. We set our C02 level to 10psi. You are supposed to let it sit like this for a couple of weeks (the set it and forget it method) I will let you know if we make it that far! Perhaps one of these times I will document a process entitled Force Carbing the beer. This method can get you from the filling of the keg to 'decent' drinking beer in a matter of days.


Just wanted to show you the inside of the kegerator. My hubby even managed to get the new keg in there with the help of our monkey. Here is the new keg, next to another that has my favorite, Pecan Nut Brown Ale (Yummy). In the freezer section we keep our frosted glasses! Ready at any time! Come on over for a pint!

 We will be adding another pull to our kegerator as we realized that it will hold three kegs nicely and we have room for one more on the front. Yea, three taps all pouring delicious homebrew! Heaven!