Transporting cornies

I am planning on brewing a couple of beers to take to a reunion and I have a few concerns.

We will be driving for a couple of days, and I know that the sediment will get stirred up a good bit while we are driving. I am thinking of racking to a keg and crash cooling for a few days. Then transferring to another keg after everything settles out. Will this be sufficient, or should I investigate filtering?


Secondly, I don't have any way to keep the beer cold while I travel. Will I have any problems maintaining carbonation or with head retention if the beer gets warm and is cooled again?


I am probably worrying too much, but I don't want to go to all of this trouble and show to with two crappy beers.

Transferring to a clean keg is adequate to keep the beer clear. A few days of cold storage should crash most stuff out of most beers, with the exception of non-flocculent yeast strains and chill haze polyphenols which can take months.

As long as the keg is sealed, the gas can't escape the beer regardless of temp.

A solid crash cool - try to get down to the low 30s for 3-4 days - will clear the beer up very well indeed, certainly enough to not worry about stirring up sediment on your road trip.

As for the cooling/preservation of carbonation thing, that could be more problematic. If the brew warms significantly CO2 will start popping out of solution into the head space, and it could take time to be re-absorbed once you cool the keg back down. It might be worth over-carbing a bit before you load the kegs into the car, and be prepared to make adjustments once you set up for serving. Hopefully you won't be serving through a really short hose to a picnic faucet...

Cheers!

come on, you can say it: secondary

I am thinking now that a crash cooled secondary (probably in a keg to make final transfer easier) will be sufficient to clear most everything out. I could always just make a hefe and it wouldn't matter as it would be cloudy anyway.

We are driving front north Carolina to the Wisconsin Dells in the summer. I am still concerned about the co2 coming out of suspension as the beer warms and sloshes around. How long would it take to dissolve back in when I am able to cool again?

54BelAir said:

We are driving front north Carolina to the Wisconsin Dells in the summer. I am still concerned about the co2 coming out of suspension as the beer warms and sloshes around. How long would it take to dissolve back in when I am able to cool again?

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Don't worry too much about it. There probably is only a small amount of head space in there anyway, so you should just increase the pressure in the keg a bit before leaving if you are worried about it. I'd just turn it up to maybe 30psi or something. Whether that amount diffused into the beer from the headspace, or some amount left the beer, either way it won't really affect the over carbonantion level much.

You can carbonate a cooled, uncarbed keg and be ready to drink in maybe 4 hours or so anyway. Once it's cooled down, turn on the gas to your desired level, and shake the keg back and forth until you stop hearing gas exit the tank. Then just set it aside and wait for it to calm down before drinking.

day_trippr said:

Hopefully you won't be serving through a really short hose to a picnic faucet...

Cheers!

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I may be using the dreaded picnic tap. But I may make my own using an extra long line to help cut down on foaming.