Warm Storage Of Kegs?

[DoctorBob]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has a bit of advice / experience for me re warm storage of kegs?

Is it possible? (Cairns is warm at present)

For how long?

I would not neccessarily carbonate, but would purge the space above the beer with CO2 to prevent oxidation.

The reason I am thinking of this is to build a larger stock of fermented beer of greater than a few weeks old. I can only store 3 kegs cold, and Christmas / birthdays / parties wipe out my stocks, so I end up drinking beer before it has aged!!...or worse buying beer.


If I had say an extra 3 kegs aging warm it would help.

Cheers :icon_chickcheers:

DrBob

 

[Nick JD]

I do this. Be aware though that the practice favours certain styles and craps all over others.

Terrible thing to do to a hefeweizen, supurb thing to do to a Saison. Lager, not so good unless it started out bland. Hoppy ales, not so good. IPAs, great (if you plan to dry hop) as the bitterness seems to mellow nicely with warm storage.

 

[WarmBeer]

Good way to save on CO₂, too. Just prime the keg with regular table sugar, seal the lid, and come back a couple of weeks later to carbonated, conditioned beer.

You generally want to go with half the quantity of sugar compared to if you were bulk-priming for bottles. Any brewing software package, or online calculator, will let you calculate how much sugar to use.

 

[ledgenko]

On a side not and I bet I am stating the obvious .. make sure your kegs are holding pressure too ...

Cheers

Matt

p.s ... I tried it and one of my kegs was not holding pressure (I did not test) ... becomes a interesting experience when you pop it in the fridge to cool and then drop gas onto it ... Freakin horrible it was ....

 

[WarmBeer]

On a side not and I bet I am stating the obvious .. make sure your kegs are holding pressure too ...

Agreed.

I usually give my kegs a squeeze of gas at about 20 psi once I have sealed it up. This internal pressure then 'pushes' the lid nice and firmly against the rubber seal, plus you will be able to more easily hear gas escaping if you do have a leak, and rectify it then and there, rather than finding out after the fact.

 

[DU99]

i use about 56-59 grams of sugar.and give them a charge of co2 to seal the keg

 

[BOG]

Got one running like this at present. I had it out in the room (don't let it get above normal ferment temps) for over a month.
Now sitting in the fridge settling out the mud for 2 weeks under pouring pressure.

I use sugar calcualted from Beersmith and a squirt of gas to force close the lid. burp it a few times as per normal and store is a cool place for a few weeks.

Chill and gas when required.


BOG

 

[donburke]

what makes it any different to bottled beer ?

a keg is just one big bottle with an added bonus of not letting any light through to skunk beer

just do what has been said already with respect to purging etc and then store it at a comfortable temp just like you would with bottled beer, some styles are best drunk fresher than others

think about all those unrefrigerated kegs on the back of the truck on their way to the pub,

or even better, think of those imported kegs of "fresh" german beers on a ship for a month, making their way here

 

[DoctorBob]

Thanks for all the advice :icon_cheers:

 

[The Village Idiot]

Good way to save on CO₂, too. Just prime the keg with regular table sugar, seal the lid, and come back a couple of weeks later to carbonated, conditioned beer.

You generally want to go with half the quantity of sugar compared to if you were bulk-priming for bottles. Any brewing software package, or online calculator, will let you calculate how much sugar to use.

Dumb question time..... if you add half quantity of sugar and store etc, then force carb at a later date, is the time required to obtain correct carb level reduced??? How long ??

 

[ekul]

For all you warm keg storers, what's your sanitisation regime like? My empty kegs get a quick hose out and then filled. Haven't had an infection from it, and from the extensive searches i've done, neither has anyone else.

However if it was warm and uncarbonated, i can see that just asking for trouble. So do you guys pull apart the whole keeg and sanitise everything?

 

[Nick JD]

I fill it up when it's empty with water and napisan. When I refill, I rinse the napisan throughly and starsan the **** out of it. Then fill.

About even ten fills I pull the whole thing down and give the moving parts and seals a soak.

I've heard people do insanely involved transfer techniques, but that's for the paranoid - I've never had a keg infection.

 

[benno1973]

I used to do just about 5L boiling water tipped into the keg and capped for 20 mins. Never got an infection, but now I use iodophor same as for my fermenters.

 

[troopa]

Never had an infection in one of my kegs and all i do is hose it out and refill.. 4 years later

 

[ekul]

Are you talking about warm storage though? Like out of the fridge? When i was bottling i used to get the odd infected bottle even though i was anal about cleaning. So i would imagine that to store beer outside the fridge i would need to be super sanitary. But maybe it isn't so?

 

[mxd]

Dumb question time..... if you add half quantity of sugar and store etc, then force carb at a later date, is the time required to obtain correct carb level reduced??? How long ??

if you add half the sugar, compared to bottles, it will be carbonated, just put it in the fridge for a couple of days and then start pouring. or go through a miracle box whilst still warm.

 

[The Village Idiot]

if you add half the sugar, compared to bottles, it will be carbonated, just put it in the fridge for a couple of days and then start pouring. or go through a miracle box whilst still warm.

So only half the sugar and it will be fully carbonated????? Why does my basic logic not seem to understand how that could be??

 

[pk.sax]

There is only one head space instead of 30 odd.

Btw, I like NickJD's original answer the best. Dependant on style of beer. Don't even have to keg it necessarily, rack into cube and store if no extra keys available.

 

[dr K]

Depends how much you value your beer, which i guess depends how good it is in the first place. If you produce lot of beer in the summer then refridgeration could be a problem, but at the very least you should try and keep your beer cool (the shed is not a good idea!).
I am able to travel to US every couple of years and spend most of my time visiting breweries, the take home message is..when the beer is packaged, be it bottles or kegs, it is chilled and remains chilled right up to the consumer, and this means refridgerated trucks. Stone in Escondido pick up beer (as a service) from smaller breweries in cold-trucks, store them in their cold rooms and ship them cold truck as part of their distribution network, collaboration is a big thing round San Diego, indeed California as a whole.
I could probably find some graphs, but hey they are not to hand and google is your friend, it is suprising the rapidity of fresh beer dedgradation when warm.

K

 

[bradsbrew]

Depends how much you value your beer, which i guess depends how good it is in the first place. If you produce lot of beer in the summer then refridgeration could be a problem, but at the very least you should try and keep your beer cool (the shed is not a good idea!).
I am able to travel to US every couple of years and spend most of my time visiting breweries, the take home message is..when the beer is packaged, be it bottles or kegs, it is chilled and remains chilled right up to the consumer, and this means refridgerated trucks. Stone in Escondido pick up beer (as a service) from smaller breweries in cold-trucks, store them in their cold rooms and ship them cold truck as part of their distribution network, collaboration is a big thing round San Diego, indeed California as a whole.
I could probably find some graphs, but hey they are not to hand and google is your friend, it is suprising the rapidity of fresh beer dedgradation when warm.

K

Dr K whats your opinion on doing say a coopers pale or sparkling using a good recipe and some cultured coopers yeast, cold crashing at 0-1 deg for a few days then keg with 'x' sugar and store at say 20 deg for a few weeks. After this stage I would chill for 24hrs then send to another keg but you could just chill for a few days then tap. Would you get closer to coopers this way or by force carb?


Cheers