Making Beer: Filling the Keg

Not the best picture here. I remembered to ask my wife to snap it as I finished moving the beer from the secondary fermenter to the keg.

You can see the siphon that I am using. I bought it from my local brew store. Really, all you need is a tube and you can use the age old siphon method of sucking on the end of the tube. The risk there are contaminates from your mouth.

Once the beer is transfered it is time to put it on the gas, place it in the fridge, and wait.
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Making Beer: The Keg

Nothing real dramatic here. Just a nice picture of the keg.

Do you see the green rings around each post sticking up from the keg? Those are O-rings. Make sure that you put fresh ones on any keg that you buy before you lose it to make sure that you aren't leaking CO2. There is also another on that you can't see in this picture in is inside on the "lid" that you release with the handle you see in the middle. Make sure you replace it too.
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Making Beer: CO2

I wanted to take just a minute to go into a little more detail on the kegging process.

What you see here is my CO2 canister with a regulator attached. The two gauges on the regulator tell you the pressure of the CO2 in the canister (left gauge) and then the pressure of your keg (top gauge). There is an adjustable screw in the middle that you can see. This allows you to alter the pressure in your keg. Different brews may call for different levels of CO2. This also allows you control over the way that your beer will be carbonated if you use the force carbonation method (http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/45577 - listen for a description). In the end, no matter how you carbonate, this CO2 will allow you to push your beer through the feed hose and into your glass.
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