icu812

Recipes 

I just bought a 24.9cuf chest freezer just for the basement to store the kegs in. Can I get some storage advice? As in, after secondary can I transfer into the kegs, purge and leave them alone? or should I carbonate them? What would be better for the beer? Since I now have room to store at a cooler temp can I do things a little diffrent now? I have the 8.8cuf chest freezer with 4 taps up stairs, But I felt limited, Since it holds 4 kegs I couldn't carbonate any more until i had room. Now that has changed. Thanks for any advice.

Chriso

Recipes 

You can rack from secondary straight into the keg and leave it alone, but you'll either have to force carb or prime the kegs with priming sugar. Pro's to priming sugar are less CO2 required and less futzing with pressure until it's time to dispense, Con's are mostly the additional sediment at the bottom of the keg from natural carbonation.

If your objective is crystal clear beer, you should consider cold-crashing your secondary in the chest freezer for 5-10 days. This way all the sediment will drop out, then you can rack to your keg, seal, and not worry about cloudies - unless of course you prime with sugar, then you will get sediment again. Either way, though, your beer will be much MORE clear by cold-crashing.

Just something to chew on. Hopefully others will pitch in too, as I haven't started cold-crashing yet - still gotta find my donor fridge for my lagerator project!

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TexLaw

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Go ahead and carbonate them. It doesn't hurt the beer at all, you can relax about oxidation and leaks, and your beer will be all ready to go when you want it.


TL

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david_42

Recipes 

Your situation is much like mine. I have a large conditioning cabinet and a small kegger. Since you have four taps, I'd just condition the beer until you have a floater, then just swap it in and let it carbonate for a week.

I know it will be tough getting by on just three selections, but think of all the poor folks who only have a two-tap kegger.

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icu812

Recipes 

The new freezer is home and plugged into the brewers edge controller. Since Iam using this as a conditioning cabinet only, what's A good temp for this situation? Looks like I can store 12 corny kegs in this one alone. Anymore storage or temp info out there?

sirsloop

Recipes 

depends... are you priming force cabing? If force carbing, I'd keep them at serving temperature with the gas on. I'd also keep a spare beer tap and picnic faucet attached to check carbonation (and to sneak a brew before you pull it upstairs!)

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TexLaw

Recipes 

I like to keep my conditioning freezer set at 38F. It's as much for storage as anything else, and I don't want mold or mildew in there. I keep a bunch of bottles in there, too, so I really don't want to get all that stuff out to clean it any more often than I have to.


TL

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Beer is good for anything from hot dogs to heartache.

Drinking Frog Brewery, est. 1993

EdWort

Recipes 

Congrats! Now get it filled and post a pic. Here's a 20 cu. ft. freezer. You should be able to get maybe 14 cornies in yours.

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EdWort



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icu812

Recipes 

Force carbing, Iam not going to prime at all. Looking to experiment with all different types of co2 carbing.

BierMuncher

Recipes 

Answer depends on several variables:

Do you have a second CO2 tank and regulator? If so, I’d go ahead and invest in some cheap splitters and some check valves and get them on gas. This will prevent you from having to have a dead tap upstairs. Plus…you would essentially have another kegerator with up to 14 taps.

If you don’t have a second CO2 setup, I’d go ahead and store them uncarb’d at around 40 degrees. That should be could enough to get you past the chill haze phase. With 14 spare cornies, it’s likely you could have kegs sitting in that cooler for months before needing to tap them. Use that time at a colder temperature to eliminate the chill haze.

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