Moving the Secondary after Lagering

I'm brewing a couple of lagers, but don't have a setup that will get much lower than 50 degrees for lagering. I have some friends who have a bar with a walk in, so I was thinking that I'd transfer the beer into a few borrowed corny kegs and lager the beer in their walk-in (if that's okay with them). The big issue is I'm not sure if moving the kegs back to my place after the lagering period for bottling will undo all of the settling of polyphenols that the lagering accomplished. Will they all just settle out again if I give them a few days before transferring to the bottling bucket?

Also for minimizing oxygen pickup on the transfer to the corny kegs do you guys just usually do the transfer with a siphon then purge a few times with CO2? Or do you fill the keg with CO2, then siphon and then repurge? Is it worth priming the keg with a bit of sugar so the yeast will take up any oxygen introduced?

-Anthony

Basically, you're going to be fine. Remember, "lagering" is just a long cold-condition, which also takes place in the bottles. I wouldn't worry too much, just try not to shake those kegs up too much on your way home. That said, I'm not sure I'd make lager beer if I didn't have the setup for it at home, as it sounds like you're maybe working harder than you have to.

Regarding your O2 question- I simply siphon the beer into a keg then purge the O2 from the top after pumping a few psi of CO2 in the closed keg. Easy peezy. I personally would not prime the keg with any additional sugar, you want that beer to be dry.

Cheers!

Thanks for the feedback. I'm doing this as more of an experience/experiment than a time/money saving venture (sounds like homebrewing in general doesn't it).

Not to say that I'm going to do it, but adding sugar to the keg should actually dry it out more. Can't imagine why it wouldn't completely ferment out further lowing the FG.

-Anthony

as i understand it, historically lagering was not just a long cold conditioning period but also when the last of the fermentation occurred. with homebrewing schedules (and probably many brewery schedules) fermentation is typically complete by the time cold conditioning, 'lagering' begins.