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balto charlie

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hey folks: How do you take your filled kegs to other places. I wanted to take my keg away for a ski weekend(unfortunately the local temps are in the 70's around here). I moved it a bit at home and was surprised to pour a couple of hazy brews. After a day it settled down. Tasted fine but lost its clarity. Any tips? Also how to keep cool temps, sleeping bag?
Thanks, Charlie who's going mobile
 
"It tasted fine" What, are you taking it to a competition?

Ideally a big enough cooler would be best to keep it cool for long periods of time, but short of that, a round beverage cooler with the top off holds a corny and some ice.

We kind of need to know how you are travelling....Van, compact, boat?
 
LOL...for my bachelor party we dragged a cornie out to the sand bar and had pizza and wings delivered to us BY BOAT in the middle of Cayuga lake.

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As far as "clarity"... if it really matters... then just secondary your beer for a month then crash cool it before you keg it.
 
If you have a spare empty corny, you can transfer between the current keg and the new keg to avoid the haze. The one that's full now has a layer of sediment on the bottom which is incidentally right near the dip tube opening. If you let things settle and then do a closed transfer to the new keg, you'll get ride of the sediment layer. Either that or you could use opaque plastic cups and just forget about the haze.

A bin of ice is all you need, if you can keep the bottom 10" of the keg ice cold, that's good enough.
 
I haul kegs aroudn and never have hazy pours...for two reasons:

1. secondary with a cold crash to get as much yeast out of suspension as possible
2. I NEVER prime a keg...always force carb.

thus my first pint or two has some yeast cloudiness...and then its clear bliss for the remaining 4.97 gallons.

and I use a small CO2 charger to dispense kegs I take remote. great investment...just don't try to force carb a keg with those.
 
Or consider that the haze is full of antioxidants and don't sweat it. Taste is what matters most. Unless your buddies are all EAC's or brewers they won't notice a thing.
 
Thanks for all the input. I know it is not that important but I was hoping for a solution. I do froce carb and don't use sugar. What is a secondary cold crash? This might help. I always use a secondary but keep it at the same temp as my primary. Do you put the secondary into a refrigerator? I always thought that you put the beer into a secondary to finish the fermentation and get the beer off of the primaries trub. Won't the temps stop the yeast fermenting?? Or is this the point. Charlie
 
Charlie,

What I do is ferment (primary only or primary and secondary...your choice), then keg. I take the keg and cold cash it, which is putting it in my chest freezer at 32*F until I am ready to tap it (at least a couple of weeks). This allows the remaining protiens and yeast a chance to fall out. The first time you pour a beer, the material that has fallen out is sucked off the bottom. Then you have clearer beer.

Hope this helps.
 
DraconianHand said:
Charlie,

What I do is ferment (primary only or primary and secondary...your choice), then keg. I take the keg and cold cash it, which is putting it in my chest freezer at 32*F until I am ready to tap it (at least a couple of weeks). This allows the remaining protiens and yeast a chance to fall out. The first time you pour a beer, the material that has fallen out is sucked off the bottom. Then you have clearer beer.

Hope this helps.

Thanks I see. When I build my freezer system(soon) I can see doing that. Currently my beer sits in the "old" coal room in the basement at 45-50F temps, even in this heat wave. Is it too warm to consider these temps "cold crash'? I leave my kegs in there even when tapped. I like serving beer at 45F. Charlie
 
Although cold crashing works to get the yeast to fall out it's still there on the bottom of your keg. And if it gets shaken up enough it'll resuspend especially if it gets warm.

Bobby's suggestion that you transfer to another keg is the way to go IHMO.

I'm taking a few to a wedding this spring. I have cornies that I modified by bending the dip tube upwards slightly to get them off the bottom so when I transfer it to the kegs I'll travel with it leaves any trub or yeast that settled out behind.
 
abracadabra said:
Although cold crashing works to get the yeast to fall out it's still there on the bottom of your keg

Cold crash before keggin'

Cheers
Jakob
 
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