This weekend was Halloween which meant it was time for candy, costumes, and of course beer! Between some great football games and the World Series, I was able to transfer the Brown Ale to the keg. The process is very similar to the one used when moving the beer to the secondary fermenter; using an auto siphon to carefully transfer the beer.
Glass carboy and 3 gallon keg Siphoning beer to the keg
The next step is carbonating the beer. There are two methods for carbonating beer: natural vs. forced. The difference / advantages / disadvantages of these two methods will be discussed in a future posting, but because I have a draft system and because I don’t have enough patience to wait for natural carbonation, I have chosen to force carbonate my Brown Ale.
The process of force carbonation begins with cooling the beer down as gasses dissolve easier in liquids at lower temperatures. Once the beer has been cooled, CO2 is pumped into the keg at kept at a pressure of around 10-12psi. Over the course of a couple days, the CO2 will dissolve into the beer and an equilibrium will be reached. At that point the beer is ready to be enjoyed!
Keg at CO2 tank in the fridge
As you can see, I keep my draft system in a mini fridge. This set up works for now, but I’m planning on coverting the fridge to a kegorator… stay tuned!
