Daisy chain cornelius kegs to fill - good idea or bad idea?

[Brewsit]

I'm curious if anyone has tried to connect multiple cornelius kegs together on a closed/pressurized transfer. What I'm thinking is first keg connected on the "out" side, on the "in" side connect that to the next keg's "out side" and repeat for the amount of kegs you need to fill. With a 20 gallon batch this could make filling four kegs a one shot deal. Obviously all kegs would be purged with CO2 prior.

My initial thought is tip them a bit toward the "in" so that they don't overfill, and once the gas side touches the liquid it would be above the liquid level once standing flat and the kegs would not be overfilled.

Anyone have a disaster story or does this seem as practical as I think it is?

 

[Yooper]

How will you know when keg #1 is full? Are you putting it on a scale as to not overfill?

Also, when I transfer from keg to keg, I go "out" to "out" so the beer doesn't splash into the keg- but each keg only has one "out".

 

[Brewsit]

The thought is that the liquid would flow out the gas port into the next keg's liquid port. The last one would be the one to know when it's done, probably by hooking up a connector with a tube and when it foams, stop the flow. Or stop it before co2 from the fermenter gets in the first keg.

 

[SanPancho]

Maybe better to get some longer gas diptubes. That’ll kick the beer over to the next keg while leaving some headspace for carbonation. Ive seen them like 3” long which should work. Or you can trim down if you feel you need it.

morebeer sells a keg filler rig to put on the last keg that’ll shut off once it fills. It works well enough.

 

[Brewsit]

Not a bad idea. I've seen those filler rigs before too. I feel like this shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.

 

[marc1]

Try it out with some water to see how it works. Interesting idea!

 

[Brewsit]

Try it out with some water to see how it works. Interesting idea!

Great idea! I would totally be the guy to test it on fermented beer and screw it up. See this is why it's good to post ideas first...

 

[jddevinn]

I do this every time. Fermenter to keg one Beer Out to keg two Beer Out to jar of saniclean. Gas in tubes are cut to as short as possible to help with purging. I just pull a sample pint off each to get some head space for carbonating.

(excuse the mess) one filtered transfer, one without a filter.

 

[eric19312]

Ok that’s awesome.

 

[Lalo_uy]

The only down side is if a keg is contaminated that goes to all the ones behind it.
There ara a gas purge with a plastic ball, that will float and close the exit when full filled.

 

[Vale71]

Seems like a lot of unnecessary handling of the beer that might promote excessive foaming, of course assuming you're transferring fully carbed beer. Also there is no time saving involved as you're filling serially so that you'll achieve the same rate as when filling the kegs one at a time. I think a parallel transfer would make much more sense and possibly save you some time.

 

[Brewsit]

Seems like a lot of unnecessary handling of the beer that might promote excessive foaming, of course assuming you're transferring fully carbed beer. Also there is no time saving involved as you're filling serially so that you'll achieve the same rate as when filling the kegs one at a time. I think a parallel transfer would make much more sense and possibly save you some time.

I see what you're saying. So maybe push the beer to a manifold that has four liquid disconnects... but of course you would need to have it set up with 4 bleed valves or ball floats which is kind of an unnecessary amount of equipment...

 

[Vale71]

Of course there's always a drawback. Like they say, no pain no gain...

 

[jddevinn]

Filling from the bottom up has no foaming. I've never had a 'contaminated' keg and would be concerned about my cleaning process if I did.

 

[jddevinn]

Seems like a lot of unnecessary handling of the beer that might promote excessive foaming, of course assuming you're transferring fully carbed beer. Also there is no time saving involved as you're filling serially so that you'll achieve the same rate as when filling the kegs one at a time. I think a parallel transfer would make much more sense and possibly save you some time.

It saves the time of having to watch each keg and move the transfer line before the keg fills and starts pushing beer into the sanitizer through the gas in.

 

[FromZwolle]

Semi-related: I've daisy-chained a few corny kegs together after filling them with ice. Works really really well as a pre-chiller. You can, if needed, swap out kegs once it all melts and keep the chilling source water super cold.

It's more useful in regions where the ground water is already warm, but on a hot August day, it can really help to lock in those volatile hop compounds.