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.
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.
