How to use Cornelius Keg

[cjhall01]

Hi,

I'm a newbie and have been using beer kits and bottling my beer so far.

I'm just about to purchase a Cornelius Keg and am going to have my first attempt at Extract Brewing and then when my Cornelius Keg comes do my brew after that with the keg rather than bottling.

At the moment I'm not 100% confident that I know how/when to use the Cornelius Keg and was hoping someone might be able to help?

I know that my Cornelius Keg will only store 19 litres so I'll need to put the remainder of my brew into bottles and I'm not sure where to do my secondary fermentation - do I do it part some in the barrel and some in the bottles?

From what I'm reading I think I may be making something a lot more difficult that I need - are these the steps I need to do?

(1) Fermentation in the first barrel.
(2) Syphon off some beer (6litres) into the bottles (putting sugar into the bottles) for secondary fermentation.
(3) Syphon the rest of the beer into a second barrel (with sugar for secondary fermentation) with an air lock
(4) Once secondary fermentation has finished on the beer in the barrel and it has gone flat - move that into the Cornelius Keg
(5) Carbonate the beer in the Cornelius Keg for serving.

I'd appreciate anyones views on whether I'm right .... or more likely way off here!

Many thanks

Chris

[Jim]

Well, as far as the cornies go, there's a bit of preliminary reading here.

[Dances]

Hopefully the link provided by Jim will help you.

I use the Widget World setup with mine and love it.

I just ferment my beer, rack it ALL to a secondary with NO added sugar (just to clear it down) and then rack 19L to the cornie and force carbonate.

The rest gets bottled with sugar to condition.

The only thing I have found is I cannot quite get the fizz required for lager so I only use the cornie for stouts and bitter now but I may be missing a point here.

[cjhall01]

Thanks Dances and thank you Jim,

I'd read the article here on Cornelius Kegs and found it very informative but was somewhat confusing myself still.

Dances - could I just check - roughly how long would it be in the secondary for? do I need an air lock on the secondary? do I need to add finings at all? is there a danger I can leave it for too long before I bottle some of it?

Really hope you don't mind the questions - if you are in the Yorkshire region I'd be happy to donate a couple of pints of the finished beer!

thank you


Chris

[badgerdan]

You can leave it in the secondary for another 2 weeks if you wanted, maybe even longer but don't think it's necessary and some say it starts to then give off funny tastes from the yeast starting to eat it's own bi-products (think that's right?) I don't have another FV at the moment so just leave it in the the main one for 2 weeks and it's been clear (except for the chill haze from my lack of cooling quick enough)

You don't need an airlock on the 1st or 2nd fv at all, as long as it's covered it'll be fine, you can just put the lid resting on top but don't seal it as it needs to get rid of the c02.

As for finings, only add them there if the recipe calls for it, racking to the secondary is usually just to help clear the beer by getting it off the dormant yeast

[Dances]

I think badgerdan has pretty much answered you but I tend to keep in a secondary for approx 1 week to clear down and I only use an airlock in the FV (although I agree it doesn't have to be used).

I use a cheap youngs barrel as a secondary (also used as my bottling bucket with a bottle wand on the tap) but any vessel would do as long as you can vent the CO2.

Just ask if you want more info on the cornie.

[cjhall01]

Hi all,

thank you very much for your friendly advice, I've ordered my cornie now (picking the lingo up and everything!) and am looking forward to it's delivery - I'll be getting my next brew on this weekend - going for a Christmas festive style beer - if anyone has any extract recipes for this then feel free to pass them on!

Thanks again all,


Chris