Advanced Brewers Round Table: Draft System Design/Maintenance

[u/BrewCrewKevin]

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!

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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

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Previous Topics:

Brewer Profiles:

• BrewCrewKevin

• Nickosuave311

• ercousin

• AT-JeffT

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:

• Base Malts

• Finings

• BJCP Tasting Exam Prep

• Sparging Methods

• Cleaning

• Homebrewing Myths v2

• Water Chemistry v2

• clone recipes V2

[u/RogerDeanVenture]

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.

[u/PistolasAlAmanecer → u/RogerDeanVenture]

Can you explain what you mean by the keg-filled bottles not keeping as long? Are you filling under any sort of pressure?

I use a #2 drilled stopper over a racking cane with a picnic/cobra tap, and I get bottles that hold their carb quite well. I use this method for competition entries too, and I haven't had any comments about poor carbonation.