National Homebrew Club Ireland

Brewing Discussions => Equipment & Chemicals => Topic started by: RobShamrock on October 08, 2018, 02:04:32 PM

Title: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: RobShamrock on October 08, 2018, 02:04:32 PM
Hey All

been sitting on two brand new 9ltr kegs for nearly a year now, want to try to keg a kit brew, I've been bottling all my allgrain brews with fear of all my efforts and time being ruined.

I've a picnic tap etc. and a small CO2 top up cartridge thingy, so I'd like to know could I keg carb it and use the CO2 for dispense.

figured kit best to use as an experiment, if you could offer any advice I'd be grateful, looking to keep it simple, and with the small 9l I'll even be able to store in the laundry room beer fridge with a few bottles etc. so should be Ideal
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: TheSumOfAllBeers on October 08, 2018, 02:50:15 PM
Usually needs quite a bit of gas to dispense. Don't think a single bulb would do it for a 9L corny.

But you can swap etc.

A bigger issue is the force carving of the corny itself. You will want a gas bottle for that.
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: nigel_c on October 08, 2018, 03:12:33 PM
You can add sugar to keg and let it naturally carbonate and then just use gas to top it up if needed. There would probably enough gas to dispense the full keg of you work it out. Only down side of party taps don't have flow control so your gonna need a few feet of line or it'll foam.
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: TheSumOfAllBeers on October 08, 2018, 08:42:44 PM
You need some pressure to seal the corny lid to begin with, once that is done you can prime it to get your condition.

If you prime at room temp be careful when you chill the keg to serving temp that you don't fall beneath what is necessary to keep it sealed.

For the picnic taps  xperiment with line lengths and step up/ down to other bore tubes to get the anti fobbing necessary.

Once you got all that, the co2 bulbs will be good enough to push the beer out. 1 may not be enough to empty a whole 9L corny, but the bulbs are portable, and in my experience don't leak from the regulator when left alone for extended periods.

A half finished bulb is good enough to start off a new keg.

Long term you must get want to look into cheaper sources of portable gas, especially if you make a mini kegerator out of the corniest, like soda stream bottles etc.
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: RobShamrock on October 11, 2018, 09:16:41 AM
Ta all, have a good few feet of hose, 2 or 3metres I think, It was the Keg Priming in particular I'm usure about as I know its less for the keg and I'm so used to measures for a usual 23litre batch. Couple kits came in so I'll bottle those as normal as I need some brews, and I'll allocate a kit to experiment with then
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: Keg on October 11, 2018, 01:42:48 PM
I always prime corneys with sugar, about 40-50% of the sugar per litre for bottles has worked fine for me (although I prefer lower carbonation anyway so it's been fine it the level was not always exact).  I seal the corny lid with a little blast of beer gas and use that for serving when needed.

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Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: johnrm on October 11, 2018, 11:03:39 PM
One way of sealing your kegs assuming good seal and fermented beer isn't totally flat is to invert the keg and bounce it off the ground.
The downside of this is that it may add O2 to beer.
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: phildo79 on November 27, 2018, 10:59:18 PM
Check this youtube vid for some very useful info - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUwD2AAxbI4

I recently bought a 19 litre corny keg set-up and, like you, wanted to test it out on a kit first. I figured since I had to wait 2 weeks, after fermentation, for the beer to condition, I might as well prime the keg instead of force carbing. I picked a Muntons continental lager kit. According to Charlie Papazian, you should opt for 1/3 of a cup of sugar to prime (as supposed to 3/4 of a cup for bottling). Personally I didn't find this enough. I ended up turning on the gas at about 10 psi and leaving it on for a few days. This, along with the priming sugar, did the trick.

If you aren't going to naturally prime, then you might need a bigger source of c02 than those bulbs.
Title: Re: 9ltr Cornies
Post by: Simon_ on November 28, 2018, 09:21:58 AM
Quote from: johnrm on October 11, 2018, 11:03:39 PM
One way of sealing your kegs assuming good seal and fermented beer isn't totally flat is to invert the keg and bounce it off the ground.
The downside of this is that it may add O2 to beer.

??? I would only even observe that like they do on Myth busters when they're about to blow something up