Me first keg is the full

Brewed an Azacca/Galaxy IPA on 5/31…wanted to have enough to fill the keg up so mashed with an extra gallon…5.5# 2 row…1# white wheat…1/4# carapils…1/4# c20…0.5# cane sugar. Did a BIAB/sparge…mashed at 151 for 90 minutes stirring every half hourin 5 gallons of strike water…sparged with 1 gallon. Post boil OG of 1.055 @ 4 gallons. Hop additions were 0.5 oz Galaxy at 60 and 10…1.5 oz Azacca at 5…1.5 oz Azacca + 1 oz Galaxy hopstand for 30 minutes (had to hit up grocery store). Loopie/Denny starter of 1L with a very fresh pouch of WY1272…fermented between 66-68 for a week…then added heater up to 72 gradually. She was clear yesterday so hooked up co2 tank and regular last night…PBW’d the dry hopper and keg…then filled it with StarSan…let soak overnight. Purged the StarSan out with co2 this afternoon…put dry hops in the dry hopper(1 oz. of Galaxy and Azacca)…got the siphon going and let a little co2 blast into the keg while it was doing its thing…lubed up the lid…put it in…hit it with some co2 and then hit the release valve…now it’s resting in a comfortable 75 degree room so the dry hops can do their thing :slight_smile: Fun day…I feel so accomplished :slight_smile:

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And the wait begins

We’ll be awaiting the tasting note! Sneezles61

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Nice. I like your process but you could shorten the overnight soak to a starsan rinse and purge if you wanted.

What’s your mash efficiency like? I ask because I mash thicker and sparge more and wouldn’t mind saving some time on the sparge. .

Update this later re: the flavor/aroma of the finished beer. Never used Azzaca.

I just started the 90 minute mash and double stirring…but the last two brews were between 80 and 83% total efficiency…i will calculate the mash efficiency as i cant figure out how to manipulate that one in BS2. I will ditch the purging of starsan next time and save some co2. Founders makes an azacca single hopped ale that is tasty…mango and passion fruitish.

Is there a potential for stratification after sparging? My last brew was a belgian dark strong and my preboil gravity was 1.045…post boil was 1.095 with a pound of candi syrup added during boil…seems like a helluva jump.

Yes, that is unusual to double the fermentable in a boil and a pound of sugar. Do you vorlauf while mashing, pull off some and dump back onto the top? When I mashed in a tun, I would do that every 10 minutes, it also helped set the filter bed… One pound of sugar should net you 38 or a bit more, per pound to a gallon, so divide that by yer volume and you can see how what you got may look to stratification… Sneezles61

No vorlauf…just stir every 30 and add heat if needed…then pull the bag and strain it over the kettle and sparge with a gallon.

I will assume you use a refractometer to check the Gravity. So you do a BIAB, I am wondering if maybe a very vigorous stirring just before you pull a sample to be sure all the sugars are thoroughly in the mix… You would think that the gravity be the same at the top as well as the bottom …. Try a wine their and do pull samples at various levels and check, multiple times to determine this… I will as I BIAB, wait, I use a pump so mine should be thoroughly mixed… Sneezles61

I will give her a vigorous stir this weekend and see what I get.

83% on my IPA last weekend.

So after 7 days at 38 degrees and 12psi I pulled my first very foamy pint. I have 4.5 feet of serving line. Everything I found online said that length was fine for serving at that psi at that temp…shooting for 2.5 vols. I purged and turned down to 10 psi for a day…still ultra foamy like its screaming out of the tap. I purged and turned down to 7psi…waited a day…still ultra foamy…and when it calms down the beer does not have that carbonated bite. The head is dense…tiny bubbles. What am I doing wrong?

A week isn’t long enough for it to be carbonated well. Two weeks is usually drinkable and geting there. Three weeks or so carbonation is about perfect for me.

As to the foam, your lines are too short. Mine are about 9 feet. Best way to dial it in is put on 10 feet and shorten gradually until you get the speed of pour you want at the carb level you want without excessive foam.

I still use the cobra head tap, I suspect the line length is 1’…. Works fine. I agree with the length of time to allow the carb to work… Sneezles61

When I moved from cobra/picnic taps to perlicks I moved the lines over thinking it worked fine before, should work fine now. It did not. The standard 3 ft or so of line on the cobra caused massive foaming on the perlicks. So I took the advice offered by guys here and put 10 ft on. I trimmed it to where they are now and have never had a foaming issue again.

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I will build a dedicated keeper some day. I suspect thats when I’ll find out what line lengths are needed fer the faucet…. Yes, I will choose perlick over the standard cheapies… Sneezles61

Silly me…i read nb’s kegging pdf without a grain of salt :slight_smile:

Should mention i am using a picnic tap.

Picnic tap huh? well then I’m stumped. Sounds like just over carbonated. Did you shake it?

Here’s what I’d do: Turn the gas OFF. Wait 24 hours and try to pour a pint. If it’s still foamy purge and repeat until you get a normal pour.

Sounds like you’re going to need to play with serving psi until you work out what is best for your system.

Another question…how does it taste? Any chance of infection?

Do you think i will have to shorten my line? Maybe my regulator doesnt work and im actually at like 50 psi.