First time Kegging Car Crash

[Victor Churchill]

So ... I put my first brew into the new keg yesterday. I had expected to be doing it a week ago but it was still bubbling a bit in the FV so I left it for a while longer. Then I did a quick taste of the sample I took out to blend the priming sugar brew and it acually tasted a bit sour so I decided on the spot that I'd prefer not to keg that and bottle it instead. ( This brew is a frankenstein mix of a Morgans Amber plus LME; the last time I did it it actually turned out a bit sharp too - not in a 'bad' way just not quite what you'd want for a winter warmer) . And I happened to have another FV just coming ready of a Morgans Old toucan and decided to keg that instead.

I am using the BrewKegTap keg + regulator + Pluto beer gun kit with a SodaStream cylinder and adaptor.

I had made a checklist of all the steps to follow based on the previous discussion so got on with it. Poured a gallon of ChemSan into the keg, put on lid, pressurised to 12psi, drew it out with the Pluto beer gun, no visible leaks.

Took half a pint of the brew, added priming sugar as per Morgans instructions (23 * 8 g/l = 184g) and heated to dissolve, put that in keg then gently siphoned the brew on top, Left a small amount of head space (I'm not sure how much is "right"). Lid on, pressurised to 20psi to get the lid to seal.

Now the car crash begins to unfold. I have been planning to do keg conditioning not force carbing. Morgan says to condition at 22 - 30 deg C for 5 days. I took my brew-belt that had been round the FV, wrapped it round the keg, set the InkBird controller to 22.5 degrees, tucked things away as tidily as was practical, and a bit later went to bed.

Iwoke up an hour before the alarm with a horrible realisation.
I had not transferred the InkBird temperature probe! The probe was stil on the side of the plastic FV.

Worried that I'd have an overheated keg, I came down to the utility room in me dressing gown. Beer on the floor. Thought 'Oh dear', unplugged the InkBird, went to get dressed.

Looking at it now things are much worse than just an overheated keg.

Evidently the gas in pipe from the SodaStream cylinder to the keg had been touching the brew belt. The brew belt was turned on by the InkBird and never turned off again. The belt got hot enough to melt the gas pipe and the CO2 cylinder was empty.

I had a second horrible realisation - I had forgotten to fit the check valve in the gas pipe and it looks like beer has got into the regulator.
I heard glugging sounds coming from the gas post and I snipped the melted section out of the gas tube, fed it into a blowoff bottle and am seeing bubbles.
I am also a bit puzzled as it looks as if there was leakage around the beer-out post but I don't know for sure.

So - a bit stuffed. I guess I get a new SS cylinder, put the brew under CO2 again and see if it has survived :-(


I also realise I don't understand how keg posts work .
I had thought that if there's no pipe in the JG fitting it would be shut but no, it seems that it's pemanently open - is that right? Is the ssame true for the beer out? Surely not
Until I get a new CO2 cylinder I guess my keg is basically open?

 

[AnimatedGIF]

Oh no, sorry to hear it hasn't gone too well. Hopefully you won't be put off kegging, as I found I prefer it over bottling, by quite some way.
With regard to the John Guest fittings, if there's no tube connected to the fitting on the disconnect, then it is indeed open. What you really want to do is remove the disconnect from the post if it is not needed. The posts are automatically sealed if there's no disconnect on them. As soon as you attach the disconnect, the keg is open to whatever the disconnect is connected to, be it gas supply, beer tap, or in your case, nothing/the room where your keg is stored
If I understood your post correctly, I think you got the rest sussed out(sorry, I'm in a rush so read it quite quickly)

 

[Victor Churchill]

Oh no, sorry to hear it hasn't gone too well. Hopefully you won't be put off kegging, as I found I prefer it over bottling, by quite some way.
With regard to the John Guest fittings, if there's no tube connected to the fitting on the disconnect, then it is indeed open. What you really want to do is remove the disconnect from the post if it is not needed. The posts are automatically sealed if there's no disconnect on them. As soon as you attach the disconnect, the keg is open to whatever the disconnect is connected to, be it gas supply, beer tap, or in your case, nothing/the room where your keg is stored
If I understood your post correctly, I think you got the rest sussed out(sorry, I'm in a rush so read it quite quickly)

Silly me! I had totally forgotten about the disconnects. That makes perfect sense - thank you AG.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Despite being a bit traumatic this isn’t too much of a problem (for the beer). You’ve primed the beer in the keg so if you remove both disconnects you have a pressure barrel. Put it somewhere warm and let secondary fermentation do it’s thing while you sort out everything else.

Edit: I should also say, remember that in a day or two you will have a pressurised keg. The moment you push on a disconnect either gas or beer (depending on which post you connect) is going to rush out so make sure you have something on the end of the pipe. A gas regulator and bottle on the gas pipe and a closed tap on the beer pipe or you’ll be describing a beer fountain in your next post! I know this sounds obvious in the cold light of day but if you haven’t got your wits about you at the time…

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Oh you poor fella - don't worry we've all had our disasters. If you managed to get beer in the regulator it's not the end of the world - I think @DocAnna managed to disassemble and clean hers a while ago?

 

[DocAnna]

Oh you poor fella - don't worry we've all had our disasters. If you managed to get beer in the regulator it's not the end of the world - I think @DocAnna managed to disassemble and clean hers a while ago?

Yes as described and photos here Numpty! Beer in my regulators
In hindsight it wasn't quite as bad as it felt at the time. Yesterday I replaced the inline check valve with a two outlet manifold which have their own built in check valves.

 

[Victor Churchill]

Thanks all for your rapid responses - I feel reassured. Still feel a bit of a twit though ... 'numpty' is probably a bit on the gentle side but I don't want to get banned fromhere!

 

[AnimatedGIF]

Thanks all for your rapid responses - I feel reassured. Still feel a bit of a twit though ... 'numpty' is probably a bit on the gentle side but I don't want to get banned fromhere!

In two or three brews time once you've got kegging nailed, you'll just chuckle about it, I am sure

 

[Graz]

Appreciate what you are trying to do but in the long term you might want to do yourself a favour, get a 6kg cylinder of CO2, and force carbonate.

I did have my concerns when I first started using kegs about not being "cask conditioned" as I wasn't using priming sugar and getting the yeast to make its own CO2, needn't have worried though as the beer tastes just as good if not better force carbed.

Thing I like about it is you can be so precise about how fizzy you want your beer to be. Always found priming to be guess work as even when calculating the desired amount of sugar some beers ended up more carbed than others. Using the handy calculator off here Keg Carbonation Calculator - Brewer's Friend you can just set and forget the regulator pressure and it will all be perfect in about 2 weeks. I usually speed things along a bit but giving it 24 hours at 40 psi before dropping the pressure to my desired level. Beer can be ready to drink in about a week then.

The other issue with priming is it generates more sediment as the yeast will continue to multiply whilst using up the sugar. As the beer out pipe goes to the bottom of the keg the first pint or two drawn may end up sucking up some of this.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

^^ this