Problem with filling during kegging

[Glen Rycroft]

Hi everyone,

I am kegging using the Brewart kegging kit and equipment.  I have had the same problem with my first brew 2 weeks ago, and again with my 2nd brew today.  I am following the instructions on the Brewart 101 video, however my first keg will stop filling at the 6 litre line on the Beerdroid by itself and won't budge.  The video indicates that I should manually shut off the tap at the arrow marker but it never gets that far down.  It has done that with the 1st keg I've attempted to fill with both brews.

This subsequently makes it difficult to judge how much to fill the 2nd keg as the window on the Beerdroid only goes down so far, so I don't know if I have overfilled the 2nd keg for each brew.  I know it is not a problem with the dry hop filter being clogged, as I thought that may have been the issue the first time I encountered the problem and cleaned it with no impact to the problem.

Has anyone else come across this issue whilst kegging?

Cheers,

Glen 

[xpsTech]

Hey @Glen Rycroft,

The arrow marker on the BeerDroid window is the correct fill level for the first keg when the finished brew level is at 10L. 

The BrewArt instructions say fill to 10L with water then add the ingredients, I expect they say that to keep things simple for everyone. That means you will always end up with more than 10L of brew, and that's why your first keg is full (probably a little overfull) when it stops at the 6L mark.

After lot's of experimentation, I deduct 125ml of water for each pack of dry ingredients in the BrewPrint. For example, for a four pack BrewPrint, I fill the BeerDroid with water to 9.5L and then add the yeast and the dry ingredients. My finished brews are much closer to 10L and the arrow is a much better guide.

If you do this the second keg will fill correctly and stop when the brew level drops below the tap.

I hope this has helped. I encourage you to keep reaching out to the forum as there are great members here with excellent advice.

Have fun experimenting!

Just one more tip, because the window graduations on the Droid are 1L apart, it can be hard to judge some intermediate levels, in that case, I fill to 10L and then empty the required water through the tap into a measuring jug for accuracy.

Cheers.

[Glen Rycroft]

That makes perfect sense. Thanks very much for that - will definitely do as you’ve advised moving forward.

Glen

Edited November 7, 2020 by Glen Rycroft

[Captain 3 Droids]

11 hours ago, xpsTech said:

Hey @Glen Rycroft,

The arrow marker on the BeerDroid window is the correct fill level for the first keg when the finished brew level is at 10L. 

The BrewArt instructions say fill to 10L with water then add the ingredients, I expect they say that to keep things simple for everyone. That means you will always end up with more than 10L of brew, and that's why your first keg is full (probably a little overfull) when it stops at the 6L mark.

After lot's of experimentation, I deduct 125ml of water for each pack of dry ingredients in the BrewPrint. For example, for a four pack BrewPrint, I fill the BeerDroid with water to 9.5L and then add the yeast and the dry ingredients. My finished brews are much closer to 10L and the arrow is a much better guide.

If you do this the second keg will fill correctly and stop when the brew level drops below the tap.

I hope this has helped. I encourage you to keep reaching out to the forum as there are great members here with excellent advice.

Have fun experimenting!

Just one more tip, because the window graduations on the Droid are 1L apart, it can be hard to judge some intermediate levels, in that case, I fill to 10L and then empty the required water through the tap into a measuring jug for accuracy.

Cheers.

xpsTech, in the interest of experimentation are you in a position to weigh the kegs before they are filled and then after as to confirm the amount of beer in each. Don’t get me wrong I’m not disputing your method and understand the principle. I have 2 x 5l water containers that I use and this records exactly on the 10l droid mark.
 

Now the ingredients after settling on the bottom of the droid should displace and increase the height of the fluid to above the 10l mark by the sediment depth/volume in mls. If this being the case then filling the first keg to the 5l mark would in fact be over 5l??

Consequently the experiment should confirm your deductions in the initial filling of the droid. An interesting experiment?

[xpsTech]

Hey Captain, I think we are saying the same thing.

Using my water deduction method, your liquid level should end up at the 10L mark after every thing has dissolved and settled.

The triangle marker on the Droid window for the first keg is at 5.3L, so if the starting brew level is at 10L your first keg gets 4.7L and your second keg will also get 4.7L, my understanding is that the small safety margin helps prevent kegs being over-filled. After both kegs are filled to 4.7L there is about 0.6L of liquid/sediment left below the tap level, so it all adds up. I'm pretty sure I did a test with water a long time ago and confirmed this.

I'm  not set up to accurately weigh 5kg but agree that would be an interesting experiment. (Beyond the limit of the kitchen scale and the bathroom scale is not accurate enough).

Cheers.