Merry holidays!
By baci on Dec 30, 2009 in Help Wanted
So my holiday present was a draft kegging system …mmmm … no more messy bottling for me … my question is … where do I get CO2 … other than the over abundance of it in our atmosphere, how do I get the nice bottle I have filled?
I believe a friend of mine gets his CO2 tank filled at Marine General on London Road. Otherwise, check out any welding places, they may be able to fill it.
Or do what I’m probably going to do, just buy a 20lb tank and never have to worry about refilling it for a long long time =)
‘Airgas’sells CO2. They’re located on the southeast corner of 27th Ave W. and Michigan Street.
thanks guys … sounds like I have ANOTHER reason to go to marine general. with so many of us PDD’ers brewing, seems like a tasting party is in order. I currently have a Patersbier in stage 1 fermentation.
I also was going to say Praxair or Airgas.
UPDATE: Marine General DOES NOT fill CO2. Williams Industrial is the only place in Duluth that does it, and they swap out cylinders for $13.10.
Baci: is that the Patersbier kit from Northern Brewer?
yep, I “augmented” it a bit with extra hops.
I just put down an ESB into second stage last weekend. If you’re ever in the twin cities Midwest brewery has prefilled containers… and a shitton of other stuff, it’s fun to wander around that place for awhile.
say I forgot to ask, seeing as I’ve never done the kegging thing before, if any of you are going to lay some beer into one of these shiny things, please let me know, I’d love to see how it works…what needs cleaning, how not to explode it .. things like that
Baci: Nice… a friend of mine designed that kit with Stan Hieronymus and so far one of our local guys that brewed it has won a couple of awards for it.
If you want to learn more about brewing belgians… I’d highly suggest Hieronymus’ book “Brew Like a Monk”. It’s not so much a recipe book, as it is more based on methods of brewing from the trappist breweries. I’m on my 3rd or 4th time reading it and I’m still picking up on information I missed before.
Kegging is easy. Everyone has their own way of doing things… but I’ve found this to be quite easy and never had any real problems.
Take off the posts and rings and tubes, fill the keg halfway with hot water and PBW, let it soak for 15 minutes or so. Then put a bucket over the top of the keg, and turn it upside down so the top half of the keg gets cleaned. Then all you gotta do is pull the keg out and rinse well.
I usually have a bucket of pre-made StarSan sanitzer sitting around, so I dump maybe 1 gallon into the keg, dunk all the posts and rings into the sanitzer, put the tubes and posts / rings on the keg and tighten. Put the lid on and shake like mad. StarSan foams so it can get into any cracks / scratches.
After that, I put a little CO2 into the keg, and (while over the sink), put in the liquid disconnect with no tap attached to it. The pressure should push the sanitizer up the dip tube and sanitize that portion. Once you’ve done that, bleed the CO2, open the lid, and dump the sanitizer back into a bucket to be reused. Now you’re all sanitized!
As far as carbonation, there is a decent chart here to help: http://brewery.org/library/CO2charts.html
Just hook up the CO2, set the PSI, and keep the keg cold! Kegs should be able to take 130PSI, so I doubt you’ll cause the keg to explode =)
Hope that helps =)
Super easy to get your tank filled. Go to Fire & Industrial sales at 1902 W. 1st Street. They will fill for you or you can get on an annual program where you just swap empty for full. Nice people too!
I guess that explains why you’ve had that shit-eating grin on your face for the last five days.
Midwest Coca Cola sells CO2
Sweet setup for kegging!
If you need a great way to clean you carboys, Duluth native Ryan Karasek created this cool product. Carboy Cleaner | http://www.carboycleaner.com
The Original Carboy Cleaner from 252" rel="nofollow">Ryan Karasek on Vimeo.