Home brew questions, Kenmc might be the man for this one.

Blub2k4

Hi all,

I want to start brewing my own soon, I recently got a 25l flagon in a basket from freecycle and want to put it to some use.
Anyway my question is this, I will want to brew but would prefer to use something like king kegs instead of bottling the final brew, as I reckon it is easier to maintain steril procedure for one keg than for lots of bottles. My question would be, if I did transfer the beer to king kegs, what type of a shelflife am I looking at for a keg? I imagine that when you run off some beer that it is being replaced with normal air and hence the sterile environment in the keg will be shot, unless I am pumping with gas and seeing how I have real ales in mind I dont think I will be using much gas really.
Is there a difference between pumped and non and how long could I expect a brew to last in a keg, could I drink it over a month or is bottling really the only way to guarantee a bit of a shelf life?

Thanks in advance, anyone would do but I have gleaned from reading here that kenmc is one of the more active home brewers and would appreciate learning from his experience.
cheers.

noby

Firstly, I'm not Kenmc, but I'll give it a go

There are pros and cons to bottling and kegging, I use both systems. For either way, sterilising is very important. I like bottles because you can put a couple in the fridge, or give away a few. Granted there's a lot more work involved (washing/sterilising/filling/capping).


For your real ale, air will severly shorten the beer's shelf life. A cask of real ale is past it's prime in a week. But that's fine in a pub. For home use you really want to use gas. The king keg (and other plastic barrels) also uses the gas to dispense.
When you prime your beer in the keg it goes through a secondary fermentation, which produces more CO2. The pressure of this is used to dispense. This should last for about half the keg or so. Once there is no more pressure in the headspace, the beer won't flow. If at this stage you want to loosen the cap to allow the beer to flow again, you've introduced air, and the clock is really ticking on the shelf life of your beer.
You're better off injecting CO2, so no air is getting into your beer. With this you would easily get 6 months or more from your beer (although CAMRA may frown on you)

it is being replaced with normal air and hence the sterile environment in the keg will be shot

It's not so much the sterile environment you're worried about, but oxidisation of your beer.

Blub2k4

Cheers Noby, I knew someone would know, kenmc was the one I know has a lot of experience.
You are more or less confirming what I thought, being a bit of a CAMRA fan myself I would have to shoot myself if I carbonated a real ale
So bottles may be the way to go, or gas setup as you say.

When you say you are using both systems (bottles and kegs) I take it that you mean depending on what you are brewing?
How is it with scrumpy? Does that have the one week approximate barrel life as well?
Also to scrumpy, can you make cider from any apple or is it only certain varieties which make a good brew?

Sorry for changing tack on this a little, but a fruit press may be on the cards too to get next years apple harvest brewed, cheers.

noby

Both systems, depending on what I brew and whether the keg (I only have one) is empty.
As much as I admire CAMRA, sometimes their ideologies are just not practical, especially when it comes to home consumption. At least you'll be making a beer with no additives.

I have never put cider into the keg, but I would imagine oxidisation would have a similair effect on it.
I haven't made cider by pressing my own apples either, but have read how a blend of different varieties (including crab) make a more interesting flavour.

For cheap'n'cheerful cider, I just use apple juice and yeast.

Blub2k4

Ok I admire CAMRA but dont have the moustache or the hairy jowls so maybe I can carbonate it a little, is it possible to carbonate without changing the nature of the beer a lot? As in I will still have a fairly flat beer that can be drunk piss warm...mmmm real ale

noby

Absolutely.
Here 's a handy calculator if you want to accuratley carbonate your beer. It doesn't *have* to be fizzy lager level

TBH, the basic barrels lend themselves to real ale. The CO2 you inject really only fills the headspace, with some of it absorbing into the beer. So even if you have a fast pour, your beer is relatively flat. And unless you have a dedicated fridge it's gonna be room temp.

Blub2k4

noby wrote:

Absolutely.
Here 's a handy calculator if you want to accuratley carbonate your beer. It doesn't *have* to be fizzy lager level

TBH, the basic barrels lend themselves to real ale. The CO2 you inject really only fills the headspace, with some of it absorbing into the beer. So even if you have a fast pour, your beer is relatively flat. And unless you have a dedicated fridge it's gonna be room temp.

Thanks noby, you have been very informative despite not being kenmc :cool:

noby

I'm his understudy

kenmc

Hi Guys,
sorry I dropped in late on this, looks like Noby has answered all the questions.
I'll just throw my 2 cents in.....
I got a King Keg for Christmas and made my first ever homebrew in it (single ferment). It was nice, but there were several things I was a bit less than impressed with.
A) The beer was sitting on the trub the whole time, not ideal as towards the end of the keg you get a lot of gunk in the beer.
It's very difficult to keep the beer cold, especially if the heating is on (winter) or it's warm (summer).
C) It's difficult to share your beer with someone without having them in the room drinking the beer with you, or you taking the beer to them.

For those reasons I went bottling as well. Yes it takes a long time. Yes it's a hassle having to clean up to 66 bottles, and then having to fill each amd then cap them all. But the advantages are many fold : cold beer; can give away easily; can experiment with different flavourings in bottles; easier to monitor your comsumption..... the list goes on.

I still use the keg, if I know that there's a party or a BBQ or something coming up, there's nothing quite like rolling up with a keg to someones house. Get a box and a bag of ice and you have cold beer. But for day to day beer it's bottles. (this also means that you can have some really mature beer, without having to wait for the keg to be empty before brewing more - just find more bottles and brew away. I have some bottles from a brew in May, and they taste so good now, I wish I didn't drink any of it back then!)

As for your initial question: the shelflife of the beer in the keg.
I've had mine in the KK for 3-4 weeks, the first and second time I brewed with it. As noby said, you *need* to put CO2 in to pump the beer out (well thats true of a "top tap" king keg anyway). I've mainly done ales in the KK, and they have come out fine to be honest, not too fizzy, and most of the fizz does come out of the pint quite quickly after pouring anyway. The CO2 will not harm the beer, air will. In theory it will last as long as you want/need, but I think you will probably notice a degredation in quality over the life time.

I think thats about all I have to add really. Feel free to ask any more, although I'll be away on business from tomorrow->tuesday - will try drop in though in the meantime.
Ken

rubadub

bottling is easier IMO, and good due to the reasons Ken gave. Everybody is getting those €1 long necks nowadays.
I used to syphon all my beer to another container with a tap. Then warm up a pint and dissolve all the extra secondary sugar. Mix it well and just fill the bottles with the tap.
no individual sugaring, no individual syphoning.

I also used the plastic reusable click on caps.

Blub2k4

rubadub wrote:

I used to syphon all my beer to another container with a tap. Then warm up a pint and dissolve all the extra secondary sugar. Mix it well and just fill the bottles with the tap.

Can you explain this a little more please? A little more explanation as to what the tap is attached to etc, cheers. It is interesting to learn from others and I have to admit fiddley sterile procedure would irk me a little and any tips would be gratefully accepted

I am gonna be collecting kit over the next three months or so as I wont be drinking anyway then I'll start something up, in the meantime I can learn a bit.

<edit> thinking about it do you mean a keg with a bottom tap?

<edit1> ooops I have it now, you are syphoning to a container "with a tap" not with "a tap"

engage brain then type
ok nice one

kenmc

Yeah he means that he transfers to a "bottling bucket" where he mixes in the extra sugar, which is dissolved in water. This means that you get a more thorough distribution of the sugar, which leads to more even carbonation amongst the bottles.
You can get a thing called a bottling wand, or a little bottler, which you can use to fill the bottles then from that bottling bucket, it's basically a tube with a valve at the bottom - you put the tube into the bottle, and the valve touches the bottm of the bottle and lets the beer flow. Makes things really fast, I got them from one of the uk shops - about 3 quid each I think.
rubadub, I would question you on the "bottling is easier" - easier than what? than kegging? no way! Kegging is just like transferring to a secondary, then you seal it up.
Sterilation:
I lob all my bottles into a big 80l bin which I got in woodies or b&q or so, which lives outside. It's got bleach water in it. This cleans them a fair bit, and takes the labels off. When it comes to bottling night, I fill a plastic box with sterlizer water and soak the bottles in that for a bit, rinse and put them onto a bottling tree. When I have the right number (give or take) off we go.
Hey rubadub, what are these reusable plastic tops you speak of???
Oh guys, by the way don't use screw top or white glas bottles - the screw tops dont' cap properly, and the clear glass allows the beer to be affected by sunlight/uv.
Now, back to wathcing the rugby!
later
K

rubadub

Yep it was a bucket with a small tap at the bottom. You can also get little valves that fit in the PVC hose so when you get the syphon going you can stop it between bottles.

I got the caps in easons, but thats a good 10years ago!, I dont brew anymore, I am sure they would be available online. They were dirt cheap and reusable, they were also safer, they had a weak plastic domed centre which would pop up under a certain pressure. They would blow off if there was too much pressure (rather than risk exploding glass with metal lids).

Yes kegging is easier as a sone step operation, I really meant easier to deal with afterwards, like being able to store them easy, pop them in the fridge, bring over to a mates house etc. Bottles are low cost, no initial outlay except for those reusable caps, no messing with canisters etc.

BTW I used to brew on the cheap, my fermenters were industrial washing up liquid 25l containers from resturaunts. I also got 20l vegetable oil containers at the back of eddie rockets in stillorgan. Bleach is as good or better than expensive homebrew specific sterilizers. Tescos value bleach is about 70 cent for 2 litres, and is the perfect bleach, thin and unscented, it is actually hard to find thin (as in has no thickeners) and unperfumed bleach.