Batch #1 (Vienna Lager recipe processed as an ale) is in the keg! Kegging took longer than I had planned, because I had kept putting off the prep work; had to put new connectors on the beer and gas lines in the kegerator, had to clean and sanitize the new keg, etc. Got it all handled, rocked the keg at 20 psi to begin carbonation, and tried to draw the first sample. That was problematic, as the flow kept stopping. I finally discovered that I had junk in the bottom of the keg. I apparently wasn’t as careful as I had thought to avoid transferring trub. The right answer is to drain the keg into something else, let the junk settle, and refill the keg more carefully. As I proved the issue by bending the keg’s liquid tube a little (making its pickup higher), the easy answer is to go ahead and run it until the level in the keg drops below the liquid tube – THEN fix it.
I drew a test glass. It’s not very clear but I already know there’s junk in the keg so no surprise there. Maybe it will clear after resting for a day or two. It’s darker than I expected but I don’t remember what color the vendor even promised. Tastes warm and flat – no surprises there!
The new (to me; actually fairly old) gravity-feed all grain brewing rig arrived this week. It will benefit from lots of tuneup and update work before I begin to use it, but it has real potential.