Getting Ready for Next Year’s Christmas Party

Twelve days ago, I had nothing but a twinkle in my eye and a computer mouse in my hand, and now I have an AIO (All-in-One brewing machine), a fermenting freezer, a future keezer (freezer modified to hold kegs and dispense beer), and two fermenters, not to mention an ale in the keg.

Making this ale has been a fascinating experience. Tumultuous. Touch-and-go. I made several bad mistakes, and every time, I had to come up with a solution, like a paratrooper trying to splice cords on the way to the ground.

I put way too little water in the brew machine at first, so I had to bulk the wort up with extract. Because the machine was too dry, it burned the insulating jacket that helps it heat. I had problems using my new refractometer, so I kept opening and closing the fermenter, and that made me think I had let too much CO2 out, so I tried to solve the problem with a pellet gun cartridge.

A lot of pellet guns use tiny CO2 tanks the size of your finger, and they are called cartridges. They are also used in things like seltzer bottles.

Among homebrewers, there is a lot of mythology. Things that are known facts often prove to be fantasies propagated by the ignorant. There have long been questions about gas.

Homebrewers use tanks of CO2 and nitrogen to pressurize beer systems and carbonate beer. For years, people have argued about whether industrial gas from welding shops is the same as gas from beverage-gas shops.

In case you’re wondering, yes, it’s the same. Airgas, one of the leading gas suppliers for welders, confirms it.

I thought the fuss about welding gas was stupid, so I assumed the same was true about the cartridge controversy. Some people said cartridges for guns contained oil that would contaminate beer and possible poison people.

Yesterday, I decided to try using a cartridge to shoot beer into my fermenting bucket. I had a bunch of Crosman cartridges for pellet guns, and I had a little keg-charging device that used cartridges. I wanted to see if it would work. I shot gas into the fermenter, and then I shot some into a two-liter bottle of Coke that had gone flat.

Later, the Coke tasted gross. The gas stank.

I was not pleased. The Coke was worthless, but the beer cost money to make, and it also required a lot of work and time. I opened the fermenter, and sure enough, it smelled off. I thought I would have to throw the beer out.

I decided to use a CO2 tank to blow new CO2 in and displace the cartridge gas. I also shot a whole cartride into my utility sink with the charger held against the side. I did this to see if oil came out. To my relief, there was no residue on the sink after the cartridge emptied. That means the gas can’t poison me. A little gas floating above beer could conceivably flavor it, but unless oil got into the beer, it wouldn’t harm me.

I tasted a little bit of the beer, and I couldn’t taste anything unusual.

Today I kegged the beer, and it seems okay. I shot CO2 into the keg, and now it’s chilling to 38°. By tomorrow night, it should be carbonated, and then I can have a beer and see if it’s worth keeping.

Ordinarily, I would use tall, skinny Cornelius soda kegs to hold my beer, but when I got ready to brew this time, I decided to start out with a Megamouth Torpedo keg. This is a keg made for homebrewers. It’s short and wide. I bought it because I hoped it would be short enough to fit in my spare fridge.

I must have been confused about the measurements, because it’s not even close to short enough. I am keeping it, however, because it has another benefit. It will allow me to get more beer into my keezer (beer freezer), and it will probably let me keep one keg a little warmer than the others.

Chest freezers have steps or platforms inside them because compressors have to go somewhere. These steps, commonly called “humps,” reduce the floor space. That means tall kegs can only fit in the areas beside the humps.

A shorter keg can sit on the hump next to a CO2 or nitrogen tank. In my case, this should make it possible for me to have 4 Cornelius kegs plus a short keg. Humps generally give off a little heat in spite of being insulated, so a keg sitting on a hump may be slightly warmer than the other kegs in the keezer.

Different beers like different temperatures. I like lagers coldest. After that, most ales. After that, stouts. I should be able to have 5 gallons of stout at a warmer temperature than the beers around it. Even if it’s the same temperature, I’ll have a total of 5 beer varieties, not 4.

If I can pull this off, I’ll be the king of small keezers.

I have 4 used Corny kegs on the way, along with 4 beer faucets and 1 stout faucet. If the kegs will work with the Torpedo, nitrogen, and CO2 in the keezer, I’ll need to buy faucet number 5 and incorporate it in the design of the keezer.

Generally, a keezer will have a wooden collar between the body and lid. The collar is a frame made from things like 2×6’s on their sides. It sits on top of the keezer, and instead of having the lid rest on the keezer, it rests on the collar. This gives you additional internal height and lets you install your faucets, which people like to call “taps,” through the wood. If you do things this way, you don’t have to install taps on top of the lid or drill holes through the side of the chest.

I’ll need one hole per tap. I’ll also need a drip tray I can fasten to the front of the keezer. I can’t undrill holes, and I probably can’t make a drip tray longer or shorter, so I have to wait for the Corny’s to decide how to make the collar and which tray to buy.

Once all this is decided, I have to decide how to attach the collar to the top of the keezer.

I know a lot of people use Liquid Nails. I’m wondering if silicone is better, mainly because silicone will come off when you want it to.

I used to have a regular appliance repair guy, and I always pick tradesmen’s brains when they do work for me, so I peppered him with questions. I asked who made reliable refrigerators. He worked on everything from Haiers to Sub-Zeros. He said they were ALL junk, so I should buy whatever was cheapest. And there wasn’t a whole lot he could do when they went bad. They were all Chinese, and once the systems started leaking, they had to be replaced.

Back when the world was sane, freezers were made in Caucasian countries by skilled workers, and they were expensive. They ran forever, and when they broke down, they could be fixed. My grand mother got her deep freezes in the Sixties as far as I know, and they were running when she died in 2003. I suppose commercial freezers are still like that. Things are different now. If you get 10 years out of a refrigerator or freezer, you’ve hit a home run.

If what the repairman said was true, then it seems like a bad idea to fasten a collar to a freezer permanently. If I use something I can undo, and the keezer dies, I can take the collar off and put it right on the same model. 

I had an idea about using Velcro. I could rout shallow pockets in the underside of the collar, just high enough to keep the Velcro from lifting the collar off the keezer. Then I could run silicone around the joints. The Velcro would be invisible, and if the keezer expired, I would be able to get the collar off.

But maybe it’s a stupid idea.

I don’t like the idea of using silicone all by itself because it’s not much of an adhesive.

UPDATE: I consulted some people who had already built keezers, and their ideas are much better than mine. Really excellent. I think I’ll listen to them and adapt their concepts.

I would guess that by Wednesday night, I should know what to do. I should be able to have my second beer fermenting before then, too.

Again, I wonder why I felt moved to do all this. I truly think God is in it.

I wonder if it’s connected to the rapture, or at least to celebrating it. The rapture will be the second real Christmas. Jesus will be coming to Earth for us one more time. Recently, I got that revelation from God, and it made me feel like celebrating. Maybe when the rapture comes, it won’t be instantaneous, and we will have a little time to get together and vent our joy. A beer or two would certainly be in order.