Purging Oxygen From kegs

Kegging
1

First time kegging - I racked two 5 gal batches from secondary into keg saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon. After going through some notes online this morning I did not purge the oxygen out of the kegs correctly. If I get home and purge this afternoon (Monday) is it soon enough to save the beer or will oxidation have ruined them both at this point?

Thanks.

Joe

2

Don’t worry. Your beer is not ruined. If you racked from the secondary to the keg with normal care and handling, you likely didn’t not introduce any meaningful amount of oxygen. The beer filled the keg and pushed out the air gently.

A purge of the keg now will help remove the remaining air at the top of the keg (which is good). At this point of the beer’s life, you don’t want to slosh it around which could introduce more oxygen.

3

You didn’t do it correctly? How did you do it.

Like Scott said, unlikely your beer is ruined.

4

I saw a few threads about purging oxygen off the take when you first pu thte new beer in the keg. I didnt do that but I check last night and everything was fine. I did purge, and think it will turn out.

Second question. Once a keg has reached the desired carbonation level, should I disconnect, and purge excess Co2, then reconnect at serving PSI?

5

If you’re not in a hurry, the best thing to do is hook up at serving pressure from the start and just leave it there. have you ‘balanced’ your system, or read about it?

6

I have not balanced it, but i will look into it right now. Thanks!

7

That’s a good idea, in a nutshell it involves determining:

  1. At what temp do you want to serve you beer
  2. How much carbonation do you want
  3. What temp/psi combo satisfies #1 and #2(many charts online for this)
  4. Adjusting your serving line length for foam-free pours (there are formulas for this to get you in the ballpark but really just trial and error for your specific system, just start longer than you think you need and you can always trim 6"-12" at a time).
8

Touching on the first question again as you transferred the beer into the keg CO2 will come out of solution forming a blanket over the beer and pushing the O2 out of the keg. I wouldn’t risk making this a regular thing but im sure you will be OK. Purging the keg after you have transferred beer into it is always a good idea. Good luck

9

I’m assuming “purging” means opening the release valve for a second or two?? Is this correct or does it involve more than this? Thanks.

10

Yes purging is opening the check valve several times there really is no number of times I just keep doing it till I feel good about it.

11

After clamping down the lid, fill head space with gas, turn off gas flow to keg, purge headspace by pulling pressure valve ring and then repeat for a total of 4 times in a row and then set the gas to carbonate the beer, and you’ll be golden.