Filling un-converted cornies?

[celticbrew]

Has anyone had any luck with filling un-converted cornies(ball lock) with carbonated beer?

[drewseslu]

I do it for festivals and weekly promotion at the pub, but it is a colossal pain the arse. They frequently need repair and rehab, but the're cheap enough and 'work' well enough it is almost worth the hassle.
Cleaning them is not an effective use to time or chemicals, IMO.

[jwalts]

Yes, but only when people bring in their own kegs. Here's the basic process:

-Purge a keg with CO2 and pressurize it to about 10 psig.
-Hook it up to a serving vessel, open any valves in the liquid flow path (keep the keg's relief valve closed) and walk away.
-Briefly open the keg's relief valve and walk away again.
-Repeat until the keg is full.

Joe

[Rosie]

I think the key is having the counterpressure when dealing with anything carbonated and of course the cold helps...

Here is a thread that has some more details:

http://www.probrewer.com/vbulletin/s...ad.php?t=11353

Cheers,
Jeff

[JoeV]

I usually fill from a sankey keg and just bleed pressure from the corny prv slowly. It just occured to me though that if you could use a line with the right restriction to give you enough pressure drop in the dispense end, just like you would do for balancing a draft system. It would seem the beer comming out of the dip tube in the corny wouldnt foam much. Never tried it but i just might. I would love to banish cornys from the brewery, I am so tired of taking apart the plastic fittings to clean and re-assembling them.

[DancingCamel]

We attach a needle valve to the gas in fitting of the keg and fill through the down tube. This helps balance the pressure release from the keg with the filling flow rate.

David

[canyon]

If you frequently need to set up and fill a bunch and are going to be present with the job at hand, you can experiment with a few different size orifices on the bleeding gas QC. If you keep your pressures/temperatures constant you will hone in on the one that works for your particular situation (Before you figure it out, run that bleeder foam into a pitcher(s) and drink it or make sure someone does as brewers need to avoid alcohol abuse when possible!). It is also handy to fill on a scale so you know when you are full. You actually need the proper headspace in the keg.

[gabewilson50]

I fill cornies all the time, and I used to fill them the way jwalts said to do it, but it's a PITA to have to keep coming back to pull the relief valve. Then I moved down here and started watching the brewer at the time fill them by slowly unscrewing the relief valve until you hear a slow release of pressure. The keg then fills nice and slowly (just like a sankey keg) until some foam starts coming out the valve and finally you know it's full when the foam becomes very liquidy. Filling cornies this way wastes very little beer and is much less of a hassle than having to constantly come back and do something to the keg (you can use that nervous energy to constantly check on the keg to see if you have foam coming out yet or not).

[South County]

NB charges $25 for this or you could just make one up at the hardware store. Simple enough and works well. No different than manually filling a 1/2bbl IMO.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/pics/fullsize/bleeder.jpg

[wild bill]

use asnifter valve

fill the beer through the lig. out side, pressure with co2, put snifter valve on, when the beer has filled the tank, a ball rises in valve and closes of air discharge.

foxx equip/kanas city

[Darel Matthews]

Why don't you guys fill them with flat beer, then force carb? You run just as much chance of screwing up your carbonation using the method you guys decribe as with force carbonating. If I need to I'll purge the keg, fill right off the bbt, re-purge just to be safe, cap and stick it on a CO2 tank. Takes less than 5 minutes.

You can walk away from it for a few days and it'll be OK, or if you need it RIGHT NOW, you can set your regulator at the desired pressure and shake the hell out of the keg until the regulator stops groaning. Usually takes about ten minutes, plus you build your upper body for all the coeds who come in wondering if you can make Zima.

If it weren't for the PITA seals on the lids I'd use them for a lot more stuff.