Serving from keg at cellar temp(55ish)?

I'm looking into getting a kegging setup but don't have a fridge/freezer to put the kegs in yet. I figured I could just do it in my basement which is perpetually around 55 fahrenheit and serve into chilled glasses or something

Anyone do that? Will you receive excessive foam from serving from a keg at 55?

ashyg said:

Anyone do that? Will you receive excessive foam from serving from a keg at 55?

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If you have long enough lines, you won't have excessive foaming. At 55 degrees, you'll want the regulator at 20 psi. In order to balance it, you'd have to have lines about 15 feet long. That's not a big deal, as you can coil them up. The only issue might be having the lines warm- that might cause a bit of foaming. And serving into chilled glasses can cause some foaming. You may find that you have to turn down the pressure every time you serve a glass, or get even longer longs. There isn't any disadvantage to having longer lines, though.

Thanks, Yooper! Lots of MI brewers on here

How do you figure out how long the lines need to be?

ashyg said:

Thanks, Yooper! Lots of MI brewers on here

How do you figure out how long the lines need to be?

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I don't know. I use 25-30 feet for soda at 30 psi, so at 20 psi I'd just be guessing. There might be some calculations to do it, but I have never seen one. You could start at 15 feet, but I'm not sure it's enough.

I tried to put room temperature nut brown ale into a growler with the we don't need no stinking beer gun and an 18" picnic tap. Ended up with a growler of pure foam.

I've been doing this for about 5 months now. It was a little tricky at first, but now it works fine, you just have to adjust your CO2 pressure way more than when in a keg fridge. You will get more foam, but it's still livable. I just have a 3 and 4 foot lines on my picnic tappers. Depending on temp and CO2 level you want, I pressurize between 25-30 PSI for about 5 days.

When it comes time to drink (most styles are fine at room temp, remember the basement floor is cement and usually colder that room temp) I release the pressure in the keg, set to between 5-8 PSI and pour. There will be less foaming if you pour into a chilled growler or glass, also raise the tap and glass up high while pouring, this will cause more friction for the beer slowing it down slightly. I can fill a growler about half full, if I'm patient I fill half full, cap and let sit for 10-15 minutes and fill it up more, can get at least 3/4 full that way.

When done pouring bump the PSI up to 20-30 till the gas stops hissing, shut off gas and it's good till the next time. It takes some playing around with to get used to it, but it is still WWWAAAAYYYYYYYY better than bottling. Someday we may have a keg fridge, but until than, at least I have kegged beer!!