noob question on cornies

[robert2017]

Hi

Been brewing for a couple of years with Woodfordes kits and a Rotokeg and later a King Keg.

The 18month old King Keg has developed a hairline crack, (seems a common trait if you Google it) in the base and leaked all over the carpet in the spare room - not happy.

So I'm thinking of using this opportunity to either go for Corny Keg setup or just stick with the single Rotokeg. Being a bit of a tight wad the set up cost for the corny does bother me, have to admit.

I've watched several videos on setting them up but one thing I haven't seen discussed is conditioning. Using the Rotokeg when I transfer my brew from the fermentation bucket to the keg it's still cloudy and sometimes takes weeks before it clears, especially so with the King Keg's bottom tap. I've also had brews that I had to leave for a couple of months before its lost its harsh taste and mellowed.

A lot of the videos I've watched say the brew is drinkable after a few days.

So my question is how can using a corny still not require several weeks of the brew sitting before it clears? What am I missing here?

thanks

Bob

[MTW]

There's nothing special about cornies in clearing beer any quicker. Confusion may arise from the slack use of the word 'conditioning', which technically refers to the production of CO2 in the beer, rather than to any other aspect of maturation (including clearing). In steel kegs, you can force carbonate the beer rapidly, and they can therefore be said to be conditioned after days (if not moments, with agitation). That's very different from being mature or having anything to do with speeding up clearing.

I never conditioned naturally in cornies, by the way; they are better suited to force carbonation due to the pressure needed to maintain a seal on the lid. Other kegs are better for that.

[donnyo]

I agree with MTW. Cornies, like bottom tap King Kegs, pull beer from the very bottom , which is where any crud will be so you'll have the same issue. In fact cornies have long stainless steel dip tubes that touch the very bottom (so i cut 1cm off the end of mine) so even more chance to pull up crud.
In practice though, even though I leave my beer in my FV for 2 weeks and then cold crash to 3 degrees C for a week I still get a bit of crud at the very bottom of every cornie but I know that the first pint through will pull up the worst of it and thereafter the other pints are crystal clear.
Big breweries use finings, filters and even centrifuges to clear but finings is good enough for us homebrewers, though I never bother. Have you tried different finings? Finings might take only a few days to work.
So in summary cornies were origionally designed not for beer at all but inert fizzy drink syrup but we use them because they are stainless, easier to keep sterile and can maintain a perfect pressure just like a king keg if set up right. They have fittings that lend themselves to being connected to taps and gas & beer lines which is a whole new world of fittings and expense but by themselves they won't clear beer any faster.
I found my clarity could be improved most dramatically by leaving beer longer in the FV, cold crashing it and being very very careful when syphoning from FV into pressure vessel (whether King Keg or cornie) to avoid any of the trub. It's tempting to get every last ml by tilting the FV at the very end but doing it very gently and stopping earlier rather than too late) helped for me.
Finings and technique improvements are really cheap. A cornie setup is expensive and won't help clear beer faster on its own.

[Jim]

As said above, cornies work best if you let the beer clear to at least a reasonable level before you put it in there. Then carbonate using CO2 pressure.

Once you collect the gas bottle, regs etc that you need, cornies are a doddle to use.

[vacant]

Being a bit of a tight wad the set up cost for the corny does bother me, have to admit.

The great thing about stainless is it will out-live you. Buy secondhand privately and at any time you need cash you can sell them for a bit less or a bit more than you paid for them. See, it's an "investment"

[robert2017]

Thanks guys, useful info.