The Sea of Foam System: One Fermenter, Four Taps, Endless Rotation

Share With:

There is something deeply satisfying about having four different beers pouring from your home bar.
A crisp lager on tap one. A pale ale on tap two. Something hoppy and modern on tap three. And perhaps a dark beer, sour or seasonal experiment on tap four.
But keeping four beers on tap can create a problem: how do you keep the pipeline full?
The answer is a simple brewing system built around a temperature-controlled Keg King NEO fermentation chamber, a 30 L Chubby Apollo pressure fermenter, and a four-tap Keg King Keginator loaded with 19 L stainless steel ball-lock kegs.
Let's call it the Sea of Foam System.
The idea is simple:
Ferment one beer, transfer it to a keg, put that keg on tap, clean the fermenter, and start the next beer.
The four kegs on the kegerator become your permanent beer cellar on tap, while the NEO continuously feeds the system with the next beer waiting in the wings.
The basic idea
The Sea of Foam System has three stages:
1. Ferment
Your fresh batch goes into the 30 L Chubby Apollo and into the NEO temperature-controlled fermentation chamber.
2. Transfer
Once fermentation and conditioning are complete, the beer is transferred from the Apollo into a sanitised 19 L stainless steel ball-lock keg using a closed transfer.
3. Tap
The full keg goes into the Keginator and becomes one of your four beers on tap.
When one of those four kegs eventually runs empty, you don't have to start brewing from scratch.
You simply take the next finished keg from your beer pipeline, put it into the Keginator, connect it to the appropriate tap and start fermenting the replacement beer.
That is the magic of the system.
The equipment
At the heart of the system is the Keg King NEO Glass Door Kegerator & Fermentation Chamber .
Despite the kegerator-style name, the NEO can be used as a dedicated fermentation chamber. Keg King specifies temperature control from approximately -2°C to 35°C, with both heating and cooling, making it useful for everything from conventional ale fermentation through to cold crashing. Keg King
Inside it sits the Keg King Chubby Apollo 30 L Pressure Fermenter .
The Chubby Apollo is particularly well suited to this system because it is a pressure-capable fermenter with ball-lock connections, a floating dip tube and plenty of capacity for a typical 19 L-ish finished batch. Chubby is suited to approximately 23–25 L batches, giving you useful headspace during fermentation. 
Then there are the beer kegs: your Keg King 19 L Stainless Steel Ball-Lock Corny Kegs .
These are 304 stainless-steel kegs with ball-lock fittings and a stated maximum working pressure of 130 psi/9 bar. They're the perfect size for turning a typical homebrew batch into a keg that can live on the beer fridge. Keg King
Finally, the finished beer goes into the Keg King Keginator .
The Keginator has a 160 L internal volume and is designed to accommodate multiple kegs, with Keg King specifically promoting it as a four-keg-on-tap system. Keg King+1
Put those components together and you have a very simple production line:
Brew → NEO → Chubby Apollo → Closed Transfer → 19 L Keg → Keginator → Glass
And then repeat.
Why use a 30 L fermenter for a 19 L keg?
At first glance, putting approximately 19 L of beer into a 30 L fermenter might seem excessive.
It isn't.
Fermentation needs headspace, particularly during the vigorous stage when yeast is producing CO₂ and a substantial krausen can develop.
Keg King itself points out that an average brew size is around 19 L and that a 30 L pressure fermenter provides ample headspace for fermentation. Keg King
The extra capacity also gives you some flexibility.
You might brew 21–23 L into the Apollo, allowing for fermentation losses, yeast and trub, and still end up with approximately a keg's worth of bright beer.
The exact volume will depend on the recipe, fermentation losses and how much beer you leave behind.
The objective isn't to squeeze every last drop out of the Apollo.
The objective is to produce one good, clean 19 L keg of beer at a time.
Step 1: SELECT YOUR BEER
Start with a Keg King Brewing Fresh Wort Kit. They're easy. Select the kit, select one of the suggested yeasts to ferment it and skip the all grain brew day. You'll get 18L of all grain unfermented beer in every kit that you'll top up with 3 extra litres of clean brewing water. Pitch a yeast into the wort and water mixture. That's it. 
Hold 18C for ales or 12C for lagers. 
Transfer the wort into your clean and sanitised Chubby Apollo, pitch your yeast and prepare the fermenter according to the Apollo instructions.
If you're pressure fermenting, use the appropriate Keg King pressure equipment and follow the manufacturer's pressure and safety instructions. You can do it all from one tank: ferment, carbonate and dispense.
We recommend using a spunding valve with its pressure fermenters and specifically warns that pressure equipment needs to be operated correctly, with the pressure-relief equipment kept clean and serviceable. Keg King
Step 2: Put the Apollo into the NEO
The NEO now becomes the control centre for fermentation.
Set the fermentation temperature appropriate for your yeast and beer.
For example, a clean ale might be fermented in the high teens, while a lager fermentation could call for considerably lower temperatures.
The advantage of the NEO is that you don't have to rely on the ambient temperature of the room.
Your beer gets the environment it needs rather than whatever Melbourne — or your particular climate — happens to throw at you that week.
The NEO can also be used for the cold-crashing stage once fermentation and conditioning are finished. Our current NEO bundle specifically highlights using the same chamber for fermentation and cold crashing.
Step 3: Ferment, condition and cold crash
Let the yeast do its work.
If you're pressure fermenting, you can use the Apollo's pressure capabilities to control fermentation and potentially retain some carbonation.
The Chubby Apollo has ball-lock gas and liquid connections, making it particularly convenient for this type of closed system. Keg King
Once fermentation is complete, give the beer whatever conditioning time your recipe requires to carbonate at 2C and 10psi. This usually saturates your beverage to 2.5 to 2.6 volumes of CO2 which is about perfect for most ales and lagers.
Then, if appropriate, cold crash the beer in the NEO.
This is where the system becomes particularly elegant.
You aren't moving the beer between multiple temperature locations or different vessels. Our system makes it simple with all in one brewing to dispensing from one vessel.
The same chamber that controlled fermentation can now chill the beer and serve it if you select to add taps to your NEO. The other option is to get a keg and close transfer from the Chubby 30L Pressure Fermenter.
Step 4: Prepare the empty keg
While your beer is finishing, prepare one of your 19 L stainless steel kegs.
Clean it thoroughly.
Rinse it.
Sanitise it by filling with sanitiser and pushing out the sanitiser with CO2.
The goal is to have a clean, sanitised keg containing CO₂ rather than air before the beer enters it.
This is one of the major advantages of pressure fermentation and closed transfer.
Rather than opening the fermenter and allowing finished beer to splash into an open keg, the beer can travel through a closed liquid line into the bottom of the keg via the keg's liquid diptube. As the beer fills from the bottom, it displaces the CO2 in the keg above the fill level. The spunding valve is on the keg's gas post to allow the passage of CO2 from the keg as it fills while still holding pressure on the fill so that the foam from the carbonated beverage doesn't rise and fill the headspace.
We have a video on closed transfer if you need assistance. CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO. 
Step 5: Closed-transfer the beer
This is the key part of the Sea of Foam System.
Connect the liquid-out post of the Chubby Apollo to the liquid-out post of the receiving keg using a sanitised liquid-to-liquid ball-lock transfer line.
The receiving keg's gas post is connected to a spunding valve or suitable gas-management arrangement so that the pressure can be controlled during the transfer.
The principle is:
CO₂ pushes beer out of the Apollo → beer enters the keg → displaced CO₂ leaves the keg when you put the spunding valve on the keg's gas post.
No pouring.
No funnel.
No splashing.
No unnecessary exposure to oxygen.
TRANSFER VIDEO
Step 6: The beer joins the Sea of Foam
Once the transfer is complete, disconnect the keg, check its pressure and move it into cold storage in the Keginator.
Imagine the setup as a little brewery conveyor belt:
NEO
↓
Chubby Apollo
↓
19 L Keg
↓
Keginator
↓
Your Glass
And once the Apollo is empty?
It goes straight back to the beginning when the Chubby Apollo is empty and ready for the next batch.
Maybe it's a Kölsch.
Maybe it's a lager.
Maybe it's an absurdly hopped IPA that seemed like a good idea at 10:30 on brew day.
Whatever it is, the pipeline keeps moving.
Why the Chubby Apollo is such a good fit
The Chubby Apollo makes sense for this system because the fermenter doesn't simply ferment beer.
It also becomes part of the transfer system.
Its ball-lock connections allow you to:
That means your fermentation vessel and kegging system speak the same language because they share the same equipment: ball locks and CO₂.
Your essential Sea of Foam shopping list
The core system is surprisingly compact.
Fermentation
Kegging
Dispensing
The Sea of Foam:  Brought to you by experts, enjoyed by everyone!