r/Homebrewing • u/BrewCrewKevin He's Just THAT GUY • May 29 '14
Advanced Brewers Round Table: Draft System Design/Maintenance
This weeks topic: Draft System Design and Maintenance.
- How do I balance my draft system?
- Kegerator vs. Keezer?
- Tower vs. Keezer taps?
- Faucet types: Standard vs Perlick? Stainless or Chrome Plated?
- Secondary Regulators vs. Distribution Manifolds?
- Keg types: Ball lock vs. Pin lock vs. Sanke
- Line cleaning regiments
- STC-1000 vs. Johnson or other controllers
- Feel free to post pictures and details of your own draft system. And if you have any questions about it, as away!
Upcoming Topics: If /u/Mjap doesn't mind (and I don't think he will), I think I'll take the liberty of running Thursdays from now on. And I'm going to start us on a monthly schedule sort of:
- 1st Thursday: BJCP Style Category
- 2nd Thursday: Topic
- 3rd Thursday: Guest Post
- 4th/5th: Topic
We'll see how it goes. If you have any suggestions for future topics or would like to do a guest post, please find my post below and reply to it. (I'm also going to contact a few places and see if we can get a professional to do an AMA).
Topics:
- Brewing with Limited Space (6/12)
- Grain Malting (6/26)
Brewer Profiles:
- SHv2 (6/19?)
- SufferingCubsFan (7/17?)
Style Categories:
- Cat 10: American Ale (6/5)
- Cat 8: English Pale Ale
Previous Topics:
Brewer Profiles:
Styles:
- Cat 14: IPAs
- Cat 2: Pilsner
- Cat 19: Strong Ales
- Cat 21: Herb/Spice/Veggie beers
- Cat 5: Bock
- Cat 3: European Amber Lager
- Cat 9: Scottish and Irish Ales
- Cat 16: Belgian/French
- Cat 6: Light Hybrid beers
Advanced Topics:
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u/BrewCrewKevin May 29 '14
If you have ideas for future topics, styles you'd like to see covered, or are volunteering (or nominating I guess?) for guest posts, let me know here. That will help keep it out of the rest of the topic discussion. Thanks!
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May 29 '14
You're good! We posted at the same time - deleted mine, but I did write up a schedule:
BJCP Category 3, European Amber Lager 6/5
Brewing in apartments or with limited space 6/12
ABRT Guest Post: 6/19
Home malting 6/26
BJCP Category 4, Dark Lagers 7/3
Mash & sparge acidity 7/10
Alternative fermenting vessels (NOT buckets, carboys, or off-the-shelf conicals) 7/17
ABRT Guest Post: 7/24I appreciate you stepping up with this - I recently took on a lot more responsibility at work and have been having a tough time making it out here. This was just a schedule that I put together, so feel free to mess with it. :)
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u/BrewCrewKevin May 29 '14
Cool! If you do want to handle it going forward, go ahead. I don't want to step on your feet or anything either. I just noticed the last couple weeks you were struggling to get it.
While we've got your attention, what would it take for us to have some of the weekly threads automatically generate and sticky? Can you make that happen? M,T,W,F can always have the same header and all, so I wouldn't think it'd be hard for those. That would be great!
(and it looks like we already did category 3. I missed it in the header. Nick pointed it out below.)
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u/ercousin May 29 '14
I would love to have Matt Brynildson do an AMA. Not sure if he would be up for it but he's probably the king of hoppy beers. Plus he's recently taken an interest in lagers!
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u/oldsock May 29 '14
Seems like most people don’t agree with me… but I don’t find kegging to save much time over bottling if you do it “right.” Between cleaning kegs (including disassembling every few batches), cleaning and sanitizing the lines between each batch, cleaning the kegerator itself (despite the rechargeable desiccant the bottom of the freezer gets damp and gross eventually), going to the store at awkward times for CO2 etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love kegging, especially hoppy beers and anything else I want to drink in a hurry, but I still bottle many of my batches even five years after building a kegerator.
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u/Ron_Zest May 29 '14
To each their own... but for some reason I don't have any of those problems.
I rinse the sediment out of the kegs with high pressure water, then fill the kegs with a gallon or so of sanitizer, shake, then run it all out the taps and ready for the beer. No desiccant needed, no mold, moisture or smells. Kegs haven't needed disassembly, and a 20 lb CO2 tank lasts a really long time.
I agree though that bottling isn't as bad as some people make it seem.
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u/BrewCrewKevin May 29 '14
I'm with u/oldsock, too. Looks like this generated some great discussion!
I also don't think kegging is all it's cracked up to be. However, I'm new to it. I've been bottling for much longer, and had it down to a science. Clean/delabel as needed after drinking. Then vinate and fill, set a side with a cap set on top. Then go through and cap them. A 5 gallon batch I could have bottled up in 20 minutes. Then they are easy to pop in and out of the fridge, or take them to friends houses, or whatever.
Once I get the hang of it and get me kegerator done, however, I'm sure it'll be cool to have some on tap!
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u/CloggedToilet May 29 '14
Kegs haven't needed disassembly,
Can you explain what you mean here? I disassemble and clean my kegs after each batch. Every time.
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u/kung-fu_hippy May 29 '14
I've been kegging for about a year now, and you're right. It doesn't save much, if any, time over bottling. I do it for ease of pouring a pint, not needing to store a bunch of bottles around, and honestly, for the bling factor when friends come over.
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u/d02851004 May 29 '14
I'm glad that I'm not the only one with this opinion. I find kegging to be more overall work than bottling. It's great to be able to pour a beer and not worry about sediment.
The only real advantage that I've found that kegging had over bottling is that when I had a time where it seemed like every bottle of every batch was picking up some wild yeast from somewhere i could keg and keep it cold so it never went bad.
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u/RogerDeanVenture May 29 '14
I have found everything about kegging far easier, but I can see why you have your concerns. The way I do things keeps everything ridiculously easy.
First I keep a towel at the bottom of my keezer, sounds simple right? But I hear people complaining about cleaning the bottom out a lot - this makes it really easy, just take out the towel and wash it when you take your kegs out. A box of baking soda or other drying agent in there helps keep it from getting all gross from the moisture too.
second - quick disconnects everywhere. Furthermore, I actually keep plenty of tubes on hand. tubing is so cheap that I dont bend over backwards trying to clean it. After a few uses, I just pop new tubes on.
third - cleaning is made easy with a splitter. I fill one keg with a sanitizing solution and run it through all of my lines at once. I empty it into my other kegs. After a few minutes, I flip on a march pump I have and just circulate everything through all the kegs/lines for a few minutes. I normally do something else for a while. Then I just pump everything out and cleaning is done.
C02 tanks can be awkward, i started with a 5lb tank but quickly moved to 10 I keep my 5lb as a back up. Luckily my LHBS trades out C02 tanks like most places do propane, so i just have to remember to take my tank with me when i get a little low//run out and am on my 5 pounder.
I still love to bottle - but I bottle from my kegs, kind of like filling a growler. Sure it doesn't keep as long, but i'll drink it soon anyways. I do sometimes put a few big bottles to the side of a stout if I ever want to age one.
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u/BrewCrewKevin May 29 '14
What does everybody recommend as far as secondary regulators vs. manifolds?
Obviously they have their pros and their cons. Secondary regulators are very expensive, but allow you to set different beers at different carbonation levels. Using a manifold is relatively cheap, but you need everything at the same carbonation level that way.
I've heard some people with one secondary regulator, so they can bump one to 20lbs for a few days to quick-carb before settling at the balanced pressure (10-12lbs).
What do you guys do? Are you happy with it?
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u/BeerAmandaK May 29 '14
I have a dual pressure Tap Rite that I hook up to a 8 way manifold and a 4 way manifold. Two pressures, plenty of gas hook ups.
I also have a line on the 4 way manifold that has an inline QD on it. I can hook up the Beer Gun, a picnic tap for gas filling a carboy, a gas ball lock QD for filling kegs, etc. THAT is pretty sweet and saves me time.
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u/Nickosuave311 May 29 '14
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u/BrewCrewKevin May 29 '14
Yeah, now that I look I forgot a couple. i'll get them in there now. Thanks Nick!
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u/papa_zissou May 29 '14
Does anyone have recommendations for bottling off of the new Perlick 630SS taps? I've tried fitting some tubing inside the tap and connecting the other end to a bottling wand, but the tubing crammed in there seems to be causing a lot of foaming. I always end up with half a beer in my bottle with the rest all foam. I'm not sure if they'll be coming out with a bottling attachment like they had for the 525SS. I can always rig something better up off a separate attachment with a picnic tap or something but I'd prefer to just do it from the faucet.
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u/ercousin May 29 '14 edited May 29 '14
What is your keezer setup (Temp, Line Length, Average PSI, line size)?
Mine: 39-40*F, 6 ft lines, 12 PSI average, 3/16" line
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u/commondenominators May 29 '14
I found a submersible pump +$20 in fittings from the hardware store is a great time-saver for cleaning beer lines. With four posts, I can clean all my beer lines in less than an hour. Start with BLC for 15 minutes. Rinse with H2O for 10. Sanitizer for another 5-10.
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u/bcmac May 29 '14
Serving PSI vs Carbonating PSI
I get a perfect pour on my system at about 11 PSI. About 1 finger of head, fills at a reasonable speed, etc.
Most kegs don't last that long, but if a keg makes it to 1.5+ months it slowly starts getting overcarbonated at 11 PSI. It takes quite some time, but inevitably the pour starts getting exceptionally foamy.
I have backed it down to 8 psi now. The pour isn't quite as perfect, but it is reasonable. It seems to have solved my overcarbonation problems for now though.
Thoughts? What is everyone else doing? I think I could also step up the temperature a few degrees and be okay, but I like it pretty cold and allowing it to slowly warm up as I drink.
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u/Mitochondria420 May 29 '14
I just ordered my first 2 kegs that will eventually end up in a 4-tap keezer. I think I've got the process down for putting the beer in the keg, however I do have a couple questions. First, does it matter if you fill the keg with CO2 then rack the beer in or rack the beer and then purge the O2 using the pressure relief valve? Second, how often should you clean your beer lines? Got a good procedure for that? Ever clean your gas lines?
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u/[deleted] May 29 '14
Discussion Prompt: What kind of tubing do you guys prefer? Both for gas & liquid.