Monday, August 18, 2008

Finally, my brew world is complete

On this day, Monday August 18, 2008, I kegged my beer for the very first time.

I am, in a word, giddy. At the moment, I am force-carbonating it.

Yesterday, I dismantled and thoroughly cleaned my Cornelius keg. Today I spent about 4 hours trying to figure out the gas connections. Nothing matched up and I had to improvise. Regardless, it works. The keg held 10 psi for 4 hours, so I siphoned my bitter into it. I put it under 20 psi of CO2 and will shake and chill the keg a few times to help dissolve the CO2. Hopefully, by tomorrow or Wednesday, I will be drinking beer from my very own tap.

This is a new chapter in my life.

4 comments:

Ψ*Ψ said...

Wow, that sounds AWESOME. Hope it all works out!

Chemgeek said...

I already drank some from my keg. It was still warm and not really carbonated yet, but it seemed like the best beer I have ever made.

I'm going to go an get more.

markmier said...

Yessss! It truly is turning a new page in your brewing. Once you start kegging, you realize what a PITA bottling is.

Also, 10psi may or may not be enough pressure to properly seat the o-rings. For future reference. I usually crank it up to 11 (actually 20) psi to start with, then reduce to whatever the carbonation level should be.

And I'm sure you're aware that it will carbonate faster if you shake up the keg. The whole boundary layer thing -- increasing the surface area of liquid in contact with the gas will maximize the rate of gas transfer across the interface.

Woohoo! Congratulations on this new chapter in your brewing!

Anonymous said...

just started kegging mine...it's great isn't it?