Keg Transfering
Dan Listermann
Jim Williams (jim&amy@macol.net) asks about transfering beer from one keg into another. I do this quite a bit to remove seperate sediment in my kegs. I have found that if I don't do this, the sediment will get stirred up every time the keg is moved especially when it is partially filled. It is a poor man's filtering method.
I made a set of "jumper cables" for this operation. It is a pair of hoses with disconnects on each end and a hose clamp on one of the pair. In its simplest form there are two "ins" on the hose with the hose clamp and two "outs" on the other.
Fill the receiving keg with water and blow it out with CO2. It is then pressurized to about the same pressure as the keg with the beer in it ( don't sweat any differences). The keg with the beer in it should be elevated above the receiving keg - we are going to set up a syphon. Attach the two "ins" to their respective posts. This will equlize the pressure in the kegs. Shut the clamp on the "ins" hose. Attach the "outs" to their respective posts and gently relieve a bit of pressure in the receiving keg. This will start the syphon. Open the clamp and the gas in the receiving keg will transfer to the beer keg while the beer syphons into the receiving keg. The transfer will take place very quietly with little or no foaming and very minimal pressure loss.
Toward the end of the transfer gas will start to accumulate in the receiving keg's dip tube and the syphon will stop. To restart it, just close the hose clamp and relieve a bit of pressure in the receiving keg. The gas will pass out of the tube and the syphon will resume. I rarely need to do this more than once.
A neat variation that I have been using is to carbonate and fine my keg as usual but lay it on its side, "in" post down, with a block to prop up the bottom of the keg an inch or two.. The keg will settle much faster this way because the sediment will only have to drop the diameter of the keg instead of its full height. I use a "side drain" keg for this ( a "side drain" keg's dip tube picks up from the side of the keg instead of the middle ) but it should work fine with "center drain" kegs as well. The keg is allowed to settle on a counter or table where I can syphon it out without the need to move it.
The jumper assembly is a little different. There is an "in" and an "out" at the end of each hose with a hose clamp on one hose. The receiving keg is treated the same as above. The "in" disconnect on the hose with the clamp is attached to the receiving kegs "in" post and its "out" connected to the beer keg's "out" post which should be above the "in" post. The pressures equalize and the clamp shut.
The "in" and "out" disconnects of the other hose are connected to their respective posts. There is usually no need to start the syphon. Just open the hose clamp and the beer will transfer. It may be necessary to go through the syphon restarting procedure as above toward the end of the operation.
These methods should give you sediment free kegged beer without filtering with no loss of carbonation.