Do we have a consensus on storing kegged beer warm yet?

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Does storing kegged homebrew warm for 6+ months at 24-28 C negatively affect flavour?

  • It's fine if properly sanitized

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes, depending on the beer

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • Yes, that's too long and too warm

    Votes: 4 50.0%
  • Warm/Cold cycles matter more

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • It Depends / Other

    Votes: 1 12.5%

  • Total voters
    8

Agouti

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Hi All,

As per the title. I've read dozens of threads on multiple different forums, and have yet to come up with a beyond-all-reasonable-doubt answer on whether I can store LODO beer (that is, fermented, cleared, and transferred under CO2 pressure) in warm, ~24C conditions. If this is a question people are tired of answering, apologies - feel free to just ignore or admin delete as appropriate.

For those curious on the motivation, I've been bottling for a while now - extract and LHB milled all-grain IPAs and lagers - and the old beer fridge has been given the marching orders by the better half. As I've been wanting to progress to kegging, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make some upgrades to storage and serving.

Now, I'm not keen on paying over a grand for a nice keggerator (plus running costs), and have never been a fan of how keezers look, but I do have a cupboard which nicely fits a couple of corny kegs and a CO2 bottle with a bench on top, and I've been thinking about picking up a Benchy Carbon from KL. The fact that I can then just shove it and the kegs into the caravan for trips (without worrying about bottling) helps too. For those unfamiliar, the idea is it's basically a baby version of the inline chillers that (some?) pubs use, warm beer goes in cold beer comes out. Obviously need to keep a lot more pressure on them to carb, and take some extra care for foam management, but that is no biggy. The asking price for the Benchy seems like a lot of dollars for a cut-down glycol chiller, but the convenience tax is high, and not having to pay a few hundred bucks a year to keep another fridge cold (I don't drink through the week) means it would pay for itself pretty quickly in running costs alone.

So, the obvious concern is then beer spoilage. Pasteurization is an option, but totally unrealistic at these scales. Potassium Metabisulfate at say 5g per 100L, like wine makers use, would help guarantee no bacteria growth through oxygen scavanging and adding sulfur dioxide in suspension, and (at least according to a brulosophy article doesn't affect flavour)... but what about general yeast aging/autolysis/hop breakdown/whatever? Some beers, like wines, apparently get better with age, but in that case surely they should be kept cool, like wines?

I've noticed that, at least with bottle conditioned beers, the hop flavours and aromas tend to fade a bit when stored for long periods warm, but I don't know if that would also be the case with kegged beer - I'm planning on naturally carbing, then cold crashing and transferring to the final keg to remove as much spent yeast as possible.
 
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Hotter = Faster
Mark
 
What about running a coil in a 12V fridge, would need to be long enough for it to cool properly and you can turn the fridge down to below zero.
 
Whilst I agree with the article and the graph in relation to bottled beer, I'm not sure it translates to kegged beer that has been closed transferred under pressure into a CO2 laden keg.
I have kegs under pressure regularly sitting at room temperature waiting for keezer space and have had some beers tasted at HUB meetings without comments of being stale or spoiled. In fact a six month old bottled Cryo Pale Ale won the Ale section HUB competition last year. I think comes down to the brewer processes, cleaning processes, sanitation and handling. I would love another fridge to store my filled kegs awaiting keezer space but that's not happening soon.
 
Whilst I agree with the article and the graph in relation to bottled beer, I'm not sure it translates to kegged beer that has been closed transferred under pressure into a CO2 laden keg.
I have kegs under pressure regularly sitting at room temperature waiting for keezer space and have had some beers tasted at HUB meetings without comments of being stale or spoiled. In fact a six month old bottled Cryo Pale Ale won the Ale section HUB competition last year. I think comes down to the brewer processes, cleaning processes, sanitation and handling. I would love another fridge to store my filled kegs awaiting keezer space but that's not happening soon.
Lefty, do you force carbonate your kegs at room temperature or are you adding sugar to naturally carbonate?
 
Not to add more to the conversation but I have been under the impression that it's not always the higher temperature that is the issues, more the change in temperature. A keg sitting in a room is going to vary in temperature from day to night. I'm currently swinging from 30 during the day to a cool nigh of 10. The keg isn't exaclty going to match that but it's somethig to consider.
 
Dpack, I hit the keg with 30 psi as soon as I finish transferring to seat the lid, If I have the fermenting fridge empty, the keg will sit at 4 deg C until I either need the fermenting fridge or the keezer has space. More often than not the keg will sit at room temp with the 30 psi that the lid was seated with. Serving carbonation happens in the keezer generally for two weeks.
 

Is there more from the white paper or such that this was sourced from? I've noticed some aspects of this with bottled beer, but primarily with bottles which haven't sealed properly (Kolsch with aged seals). I assumed it was due to oxidation.

For now, I've managed to source a cheap chinese keggerator, but I'm going to start putting aside bottles and keeping some chilled, some warm, with and without Metabisulfate, and doing taste tests.

@fifis101 - this would match my understanding. I'm an engineer and not a chemist (though I do like to dabble in chemistry), and temperature swings shouldn't do anything except *maybe* autolyse latent yeast. There are so many minor flavour-inducing chemicals in fermented drinks, many of which can be percieved in ppm, that any number of reactions could be occurring at elevated temperatures.
 
The original of the "graph" I posted was from Kunze, which is pretty much the standard text for Lager brewing. Its cropped up in a lot of other places since, but it remains one of the best illustrative representation of what will happen to beer over time.

It gets a little more complex when people design beers to age, many of the notable Belgian Trappist and Abby beers really don’t reach their best for years/decades, but they are built with this aging in mind.
On a personal note the big Belgians I have encountered in this class don’t develop the cardboard flavour to anything like the extent one would expect. It is generally attributed to oxidisation. But I suspect their long boils and very high wort gravities play a big role.
The JIB is a great resource for brewers with a scientific bent, the parent organisation the IBD has some resources for entry level brewers, here are a couple on "Beer Stabilisation" it’s sort of coming from the other end but should give you a good starting point and a bit of basic knowledge on what beer in trade is expected to put up with.

It’s a good rule of thumb in chemistry that any reaction will happen faster if it’s hotter!
That defiantly includes beer kept hot, the cooler the slower all the changes happen. Same applies to microbiological stability, tho most commercial beers are pasteurised and most home brews aren’t,
Mark
 

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I once left a porter out to age as I was pushing for room. It was in winter and probably got to around 15/18 degrees, I didnt need to carbonate it even though I had cold crashed there was enough yeast still present to get it going again. Very carbonated but tasted good once I reduced the pressure a bit.
 
Would be great if people that have a Benchy give some feedback on how they manage the foam issue. I have one, and am yet to find a solution to too much head on my beer when i pour from the benchy, have tried different lengths of line, diff psi in the kegs as well as pouring pressure.
 
Would be great if people that have a Benchy give some feedback on how they manage the foam issue. I have one, and am yet to find a solution to too much head on my beer when i pour from the benchy, have tried different lengths of line, diff psi in the kegs as well as pouring pressure.
Why don't you start by providing details on your current set up and specifics of what you have done. If it's working for other people then there is no foaming issue for them to give feedback about. You could also ask KL directly for help on their thread since they are very active there.
 
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