Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Näf-Woods to start kegging

In December I acquired all of the necessary equipment to start kegging beers. I had bought a 5 lb. CO2 tank at a garage sale for $2, but the certification had expired. I went to a local gas company, and exchanged my tank for a re-certified tank, and had it filled. It amazes me that most of the tanks are old fire extinguishers, and I found some certification stamps dating back into the 70's on my tank, but it is guaranteed for five years. For Christmas my parents bought a 5-gallon old Pepsi keg, all of the fittings, the lines, a picnic tap, and a regulator. I don't plan to drill a hole in the fridge for a real tap, because with a picnic tap on a line you can raise or lower the line as you fill the glass to compensate for too little or too much CO2. A picnic tap is the hand tap that you used on kegs back in college. I bought a US sankey tap, which will work on 90% of US beers, including microbrews. I plan to have a tap for a homebrew keg and a small commercial keg. Eventually I will get a tap for European beers.

My first kegged beer will be a Pale Ale that I started yesterday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So when's this Pale Ale ready? Nate and I tried out one of the Imperial Pale Ale last weekend, it's maturing nicely.