Kegging the Stout

After brewing the stout it sat and fermented for four weeks. Once there the fermentation stage was complete it was time for my second favorite thing about brewing, kegging. Why is kegging my second favorite? Because drinking is my first and this is the last active step before that can happen. Transferring from the fermentation bucket to the keg presented a new challenge this time around. Typically when you are transferring you want to stop before you get to the “Yeast Cake”. The yeast cake is where all the byproducts of fermentation settle out. When you are bottling or kegging you don’t typically want to have any in your beer. It isn’t bad or bad for you but it can make cloudy beer. The easy way to not get any into your beer is to stop just before you get there. Unfortunately that is hard to do when your beer is pitch black.

The simple solution to this is to tip the bucket before you start to drain. So with that done it was time to transfer.

It’s always easier to transfer with a homebrew (or two)

Tipping the bucket allowed me to stop just before the sediment got sucked out.

With all the beer in the keg into the fridge it went. This was a bit more challenging because, drumroll please, the fridge had finally been filled.

It was a little bit of a squeeze but all the kegs fit in there just perfectly, now it was time to wait while the beer carbonated. Till then, Prost!

Adventures in Cold Crashing

Since my last post the weather here had warmed up, the beer had completed fermentation and that could only mean one thing, it was time to keg and have a round of Kolsch. This time I was going to try something a little different, it was called “cold crashing”. Cold crashing is the process of cooling your beer before you bottle or keg it. What this does is it causes yeast particles that are floating in your beer to cool down and “crash” to the bottom of the ferementer. This will allow for clearer bear when taking the beer from the fermenter to the keg since more particles are at the bottom of the fermenter. Now you are probably asking, how do you cool a 7 gallon bucket? Easy, you put it in the fridge.

After two days in the fridge it was time to keg.

After draining the beer into the keg it was pretty apparent that the cold crashing had worked just by the amount of sediment in the bottom of the fermenter. It looks green because of the hops, hops are green.

After filling the keg, it went in the fridge and about a week later it was carbed up and ready to drink.

So how did it taste? At first sip the beer had a very pronounced grain taste (duh, its all grain) but this was something more as if you took a scoop of grain and put it in your mouth. Luckily this has mellowed out since then and now this is great light and crisp beer perfect after mowing the yard or just sitting around with friends. Till the next brew, Prost!

Ryen’s Pale Ale Kegging and Tapping

Been awhile since the last post, unfortunately work is getting in the way of my writing, funny how that happens. Luckily it hasn’t stopped any of the activities associated with brewing. In this case the kegging and tapping of my Rye Pale Ale (RPA).

I knew this was going be a great beer when I took the first final gravity reading three weeks after putting it in the fermenter. The recipe had called for a FG of 1.012 and it was hit perfectly!

 With the FG reached it was time to keg!

MMMMmmmm... Yeast Cake

Since so much time has passed since my last post I was able to go ahead and sample the RPA

What a great beer! It’s crisp, light, hoppy, just wow! Now its on to the next brew, since it is starting to get cold outside, I think I am going to need a nice dark beer to warm up with. Till then, Prost!

New Year, New Kegs

What a fantastic whirlwind the holidays are. SWMBO and I went all over the great state of Texas. Visiting our families in South, North East, West and Central Texas as well as visiting friends in Houston, really put a ton of miles on our vehicles and gave us the opportunity to get some quality time with people we haven’t seen in a while. While all this traveling was amazing it didn’t lend itself to brewing or any beer related activities (save for drinking of course).  

With the New Year here I had a list of three things to accomplish while I was off of work:

1.       Find Kegs

2.       Complete the 4 Keg Setup

3.       Brew a new beer.

Number one sounded easy enough but after 3 weeks of searching and finding 0 (ZERO!) corny kegs in the DFW Metroplex I was beginning to worry. I was finally able to get on a waiting a list at Homebrew HQ. On New Year’s Eve I got the call and picked up 3 used corny kegs!

I swear, the grass froze and that is why its brown.

By scratching off number one I had completed two of my goals from This Post. Now all I needed was to complete #2 from my list to completely take care of the old post. Unfortunately, I found out that the task of expanding was much more difficult and that will require another post. Till then, Prost!

Washers: Man’s Best Friend

The time was finally here! The curse of 1.020 had been lifted; we had hit the Final Gravity of 1.016 for three days in a row, now it was finally time to keg!

In preparation of filling the keg I planned to flush out and clean the entire tap system. This included washing the keg, cleaning the pipes, and finally sanitizing everything. The keg was easy enough to clean. Throwing in some soap, add water and shake. It is when I went to clean the keg lines that everything went terribly wrong…

To clean the lines I had to hookup the CO2 and pour a glass of soapy water from the now clean keg. Sounded simple enough right? After hooking up all the hoses I turned on the gas. First I heard the unmistakable whooshing sound of CO2 escaping. Then water started shooting out where the keg hose met the tap. As I frantically shut off the gas, Rachel opened the garage door before we passed out, probably should have done that first now that I think about it.

After re-assessing our situation we discovered that we had not put a washer where the regulator connected to the gas tank and one where the keg line connected to the tap. Now, before you judge, remember that none of the equipment I assembled came with instructions and I am one of those people who struggle to make cereal without directions. 

After a quick trip to Lowes I had the washers. Once installed the gas and water flowed like a charm. Soon the keg and beer lines were sanitized and we were finally ready to keg!

Thanks to the auto-siphon within minutes the keg was filled.

We closed it up and said goodbye for a couple of weeks while we wait for it to carbonate. Lucky for us Thanksgiving is coming up. While we are spending time away from home spending time with our families and friends the beer will be carbonating. Finally on the homestretch for the first batch, hopefully the next time I write about this beer will be a review. Till then, Prost!

FRIDGE'S HERE!

Since deciding to upgrade to 5 gallon batches I was faced with the age old question of whether to bottle or keg. Well not so much as forced to pick but now free to choose. After experiencing the pains and joys of bottling previously I decided to make the trip into kegging.

I decided that if I am going to keg I am going to go all the way and make a nice kegerator. All I needed was to find a refrigerator to turn into one. Sounded easy enough, just to get onto Craigslist and find one right? Not so much. One of the down sides of living in suburbia is the fact that everyone close to me was selling Stainless Steel or French door fridges. Neither of these was what I needed, they were also out of my $150 price range. After two weeks of looking on Friday there it was! A decent $150 fridge that wasn’t too far away. I was able to call the guy and on Saturday I went and picked it up.

Now, it isn’t just enough to have the plain old garage beer fridge. No, I need a garage kegerator. With this in mind I purchased a conversion kit from Midwest Brewing Supplies.

With all the supplies the Sunday Afternoon project was set. I would have done this Saturday but as usual Texas A&M Football ruined any chance of being productive after that game. So with that I set out prepped to spend hours converting the fridge. Luckily I was wrong, way wrong. In total the project took about 45 minutes. Most of which was spent admiring how well of a job I did.

First I had to drill the hole for the tap. I choose to place the hole on the left side of the door in preparation of another keg (eventually).

And in reality that was the only tough part. After tightening some bolts the system was set up and ready to go.

After placing on the drip tray all that is missing is beer.

Hopefully later this week some progress should be made on the beer thing. Till then, Prost!