Shelf life of hand-pumped keg

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Austin_

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My girlfriend called and said her neighbor was dropping by with half a keg of beer that he didn't finish from last night. I'm not one to turn down free beer so I agreed. It's a keg that has been tapped for about 16 hours with a hand pump tap. What's the shelf life on this thing before it turns in to cardboard? 24-48 hours? I guess it's time to call up my friends and tell them to head over ASAP.
 
Carbonation loss will be happen faster than oxidation.

Especially since folks tend to dispense hand pump kegs to the point of zero pressure... You should pump as much air as possible into the keg to try and maintain carb.
 
freelunch said:
Carbonation loss will be happen faster than oxidation.

Especially since folks tend to dispense hand pump kegs to the point of zero pressure... You should pump as much air as possible into the keg to try and maintain carb.

This. Loss of carbonation depends largely on the amount of headspace at any given time though.
 
Carbonation loss will be happen faster than oxidation.

Especially since folks tend to dispense hand pump kegs to the point of zero pressure... You should pump as much air as possible into the keg to try and maintain carb.

Thanks for all the replies. This keg came super-pressurized, so I should be good. Hopefully this thing will be out dry by tonight. It's Saturday and I know my friends don't have anything else to do.
 
During university, I bought a few kegs.

My experience was that 48 hours was perfect, on the third day there was a bit of skunk taste, but id still drink it. 4th day was left to only the die hards, it was pretty skunky.

Our method of keeping it cool was a bathtub full of snow which definately wasnt optimal.
 
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