Clever name, that Dubbel Trubbel. I thought my husband had something catchy going. Little did we know that a "wardrobe malfunction" would cause some real trouble...
Tap-A-Draft is not our friend. The first time we ever used it, we noticed that the rounded bottom of the PET bottle couldn't stand up straight, so we left it on its side. A trail of ants led us to realize it had leaked beer through the floor.
This time, we figured we'd sit the bottle up within a cardboard box. No leaking. Brilliant. Bought the charging cartridges. They didn't work out. I defer to my spouse on the technical details. And, of course, then the bottle wasn't airtight.
Our beautiful Belgian beer, the one we waited months to savor, was now on the edge of air damage. All because we dressed her up in a Tap-A-Draft. Well, no longer. We are kegger/bottlers from here on out.
Of course, my devastated better half thought we ought to pour the entire batch out, but I, Mrs. Brew Meister, am a terrible influence. I said, "For all of the waiting and trouble, the least we can do is get drunk off of it." And we did.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Should have known it when we named it
Saturday, February 9, 2008
It's all about the equipment (part 2)
Psst....Hey buddy….Can I interest you in a used Cornelius Keg?
That is how the transaction seemed to go. I was getting ready to go out of town for a bit and needed to bottle a batch before I left. I really wanted to keg the batch, but had not yet purchased a keg. I ran to my local brew shop with hopes of getting a 5 gallon keg, new or used. Truth be told, I was ready to spend $100+ for a new keg, knowing that I did not plan the purchase out, and there may not be any used kegs in stock. When I arrived, there were no kegs to be found at all.
I was given a story about one of the guys traveling to Michigan to meet a guy about a thing and probably come back with a truckload of used kegs, but at the moment they didn’t have a reliable source. To their credit (and one of the reasons I continue to go to this shop) they offered to drain one of the kegs at the shop and let me borrow it until they did get some in stock.
After a several ideas, I left without my keg and went home to bottle my batch of Dubbel Trubbel. I did use the Tap-a-Draft, so that saved me a bit of time. We’ll see how well beer ages in there; I also filled about 10 bottles as well.
While I was out of town, Mrs. Brew Meister followed up with the LBS to see if the Michigan connection was able to come home with some used kegs. She visited the shop, and while they did not have any in stock, one of the guys decided to sell two of his personal kegs to the LBS so they could sell them to us! 40 bucks, and 2 pin and lock kegs at last.
The CO2 cans are really expensive. I bought I setup from an online retailer that sold a 5 lb can, a 3 foot gas line, a 2 foot beer line with a picnic tap, and a single double gauge regulator.
There is a bit of learning curve in kegging beer. The first lesson learned was replace all seals in any keg that is new to you. Even though the keg had been washed (and was holding pressure when I bought them) the seals would not hold after I transferred the first batch, and I lost all the gas in the CO2 can of the course of a few days.
(Note from Mrs. Brew Meister: While the LBS guys said the seals wouldn’t need attention just yet, the guy who sold the used kegs to the shop urged and insisted that the seals really should be replaced. He repeated this advice to me several times. It should go down in history like all great lines: “Replace the Seals!”)
CO2 containers can be filled at several places, but the best place may be a paintball shop. I have several options in the yellow pages for industrial gas, but most places do the swap program. I was not about to trade in my nice new clean can for a potentially dirty or greasy can. Also, the industrial guys wanted $17 for a 5lb can. Mrs. Brew Meister did a quick search and found the paintball shop in town will fill our can while we wait for $10.
Teflon tape and keg lube are essential. The Teflon tape works on any threaded connection to help seal and make the connection easier to tighten. The keg lube helps extend the life of the o-rings, and allows for an easier connection of pin connectors.
Let the CO2 carbonate the beer. I know it is possible to have a “bottle conditioned” keg, but why bother? All the yeast settles on the bottom of the keg, and is at the front of the line when you dispense the beer. It all works out best when you learn to pressurize the beer so that there is a nice equilibrium between the carbonation level and the dispensing pressure.
Here is a great introduction to kegging beer with Cornelius kegs. It was one of the best investments I have made in homebrewing.
Cheers!
(To be continued, with ISSUE 2: Plumbing...)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
It's all about the equipment (part 1)
As I ramped up my beer-making efforts this year, I realized that I had to update some of my equipment. I love the DIY and problem-solving aspects of brewing. Finding a way to easily sparge the specialty grains with common household tools, creating climate-controlled areas for fermentation, and creating a new beer from the inconsistent supply of hops at the LBS, are all part of the fun. However, I don’t like when some of the work is tedious or plain difficult.
I have come across two areas that I needed to improve if I am going to brew to the limit this year.
Issue 1: Kegs
I have been complaining for as long as I have been brewing about bottling entire batches of beer. It is usually a messy, time-consuming process that requires a small warehouse to store the bottles that may need to be pulled into rotation. I don’t have a problem supplying the needed empties, as Mrs. Brew Meister and I fill that channel well enough. We have a stack of bottles ready in a back room of the house, but I just can’t fill those darn things without spilling beer on every bottle.
There is also a little more room for error in natural carbonation versus forced. Picture this: I am in the basement with a few friends, drinking some beers from the previous batch and bottling the new batch. Twenty or so bottles into the process, I noticed the priming sugar still sitting in its sealed package on the counter. Oops. Forgot to add the sugar to the bottling bucket. I then went into mathematician mode of dividing the amount of sugar to the balance of beer in the bucket, and the rest into premeasured scoops for each bottle.
Somehow the math may have been made a bit fuzzy from the session prior to bottling. Regardless, the results were a six-pack that exploded a few days later, leaving two quarts of beer on my bar, and there was a bottlecap-sized hole in the ceiling from the main troublemaking bottle. The rest of the beer turned out to be the best batch I ever made; it was a shame to leave so much of it in the mop bucket.
I have been swearing ever since to go to kegs. I tried the half-arsed approach and bought the Tap a Draft system. This was due to the cost of a 5 gallon corni system and my commitment to brewing at the time.
The advantages to the Tap a Draft:
- I only need to fill a few large PET bottles, greatly simplifying the process
- The pressure level creates a nice, albeit slow, pour
- Easy to take places
- Inexpensive to add more bottles
The disadvantages to the Tap a Draft:
- The bottles can only be stored vertically, as they leak when stored horizontally; however, the bottle bottoms are ROUND so keeping them vertical takes a bit of rigging
- The CO2 cartridges are only for dispensing; they cannot carbonate the beer
- The cartridges can only be used for one bottle, as once you pierce them, you can’t close them off when you take the tap off the bottle (so any remaining CO2 escapes when you remove the tap from an empty bottle)
This was a good answer for the price, but if I really wanted to lift my game, I was going to have to go for the five gallon kegs...(to be continued)
