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Kegging Tricks and Tips
1) Test your keg for leaks by pressurizing it with at least 15 PSI of CO2 and verify that it holds pressure by pressing in the center of the gas side poppet valve an hour later. You should hear and feel the CO2 escaping from the keg.
2) Don’t forget to rinse, inspect and sanitize your keg before each and every use.
3) You should fill the keg ½ ways up with sanitizer and then shake the keg to coat all surfaces. I sell an excellent sanitizer that’s used by the food industry to sanitize shake and soft serve machines.
4) To sanitize the dip tube, pressurize the keg and press the liquid side poppet. The CO2 pressure will force sanitizer up into the dip tube and out the poppet valve. Don’t forget to shield your eyes!
5) Rinse your keg at least twice with hot water after sanitizing, and don’t forget to flush the dip tube with rinse water.
6) Put the lid and gasket in boiling water before kegging. Not only will the water sterilize the lid and gasket, the hot water will also soften the gasket & will help it seal.
7) Sit your keg upside down until you are ready to fill. This will let the remaining water drain out and will greatly reduce the amount of airborne contaminants inside the keg.
8) Make sure that your siphon hose will reach to the bottom of the keg and disturb your beer as little as possible while siphoning your beer into the keg. And please, please don’t pour your beer into the keg! You want to introduce as little oxygen as possible into your brew.
9) Don’t fill the keg past the short gas line inlet.
10) Pressurize your keg with about 10 pounds of CO2 after closing the lid. Blow out the pressure by either pulling the pressure relief pin or depressing the gas poppet valve if your keg is the style with a hooded pressure relief pop off valve. Do this several times to replace the air with CO2. When done, pressurize the keg one final time and check later for leaks. Leaky poppet valves can usually be sealed by flicking them with your fingernail.
Additional Kegging Tips
1) If you decide to naturally carbonate, then charge your 5 gallon keg with 1/3 cup of corn sugar boiled in one cup of water.
2) Also, if you decide to naturally carbonate, don’t forget to cut ½" off the dip tube. The dip tube reaches almost all the way to the bottom of the keg and no one wants a slug of yeast in their glass of beer.
3) A new, clean toilet brush works great for cleaning kegs.
4) Resist the temptation to leave any type of chlorinated sanitizer sitting in your kegs for an extended period of time – it’s very hard on the stainless steel.
5) If you really want clear beer, then you can always keg and then transfer your beer over to a second keg in a month or two with CO2 pressure and a jumper. A jumper is made by bridging two quick disconnects with a 18" piece of hose. If you really want to do it right, you need to make a liquid side to liquid side jumper which will eliminate splashing during the transfer by delivering the beer to the new keg through the dip tube.
6) Too much hops, too little mouth feel? Kegging gives you the ability to rescue a bad batch by offering you the option to blend beers. For example, you can "fix" a hoppy beer by making a second batch with light hops and then blending the two together. Just don’t forget that no amount of blending will help a batch that’s really gone wrong!