How long will my keg carbonation last

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I plan on bringing a keg to a wedding. I will have it cared to proper volume at home. Will the change in temp from 38 to 75 back down require days at serving temp to get a proper pour? I'm new to keying generally but this is my first transport. I figure the bottle model holds, that it will be perfectly okay but just want to make sure. Thanks in advance!
 
I plan on bringing a keg to a wedding. I will have it cared to proper volume at home. Will the change in temp from 38 to 75 back down require days at serving temp to get a proper pour? I'm new to keying generally but this is my first transport. I figure the bottle model holds, that it will be perfectly okay but just want to make sure. Thanks in advance!

Letting a keg warm up and then cooling down will not affect the level of carbonation, however, two points of warning...

1. It will take considerable time to re-chill a warm keg, figure 48-72 hours IME.

2. There is usually sediment on the bottom of a conditioned keg of homebrew, transporting this can kick up the sediment and the nice clear beer you had will be murky for at least a week till it resettles. Best practice IME is to transfer the beer to a clean keg prior to transport.
 
Co2 is dissolved into solution more readily at a lower temperature and leaves solution at a higher temperature to equalize pressure differential. That is one of the reasons other besides gas expansion that the head space pressure increases. For example if you want to get lets say 2.7 volumes of co2 and you store your keg at 36 degrees you may only need 12psi but to maintain that same psi at let's say 60 degrees you may need to keep it at 20 psi to keep that volume I co2 in the solution of beer.

I think what he meant was if the head space is small relative to the volume of beer, the change in carbonation won't be significant. For a back of the envelope calculation, consider 5 gallons of beer with 0.5 gallons of head space, carbed at serving temp at 15 psi gage pressure. That's 30 psi absolute pressure. Suppose you disconnect the keg and let it warm to a temp where the pressure in the headspace would need to rise to 30 psi gage / 45 psi absolute to keep it carbed. That would require a 50% increase in the amount of gas in the head space, which would take only 0.05 volumes out of your beer.
 
Some of our beer that has got warm does not taste as good as when we kept it cold. We do transfer beer on a regular basis, and if you are careful, it will not be too badly shaken. We do lash it down and always keep the keg upright. If you put on the side or slosh around, the beer will not be good unless you filtered it. we use the little portable CO2 thing with great success although relatively expensive, but tail gating at a Rangers game with cold homebrew? Priceless!
 
Something I learned the hard way -- get some keg lube and lube the o-rings on the posts and the seal on the lid and you're less likely to have a leaky keg!
 
How long will my keg carbonation last if I remove the gas-in pressure? I currently have a single keg setup. What I'm considering is buying a second keg and carbing both kegs with my current set up. If I get proper carbonation in keg 1 and then connect my co2 to keg 2, how long will my carbonation stay decent in #1? Is the current 12psi in the keg enough pressure to keep the carbonation level where I want I to be? Will this setup do the trick?

Where are you going to put the 1st keg, once you pressurize it, and are doing the 2nd keg?
 
jflongo said:
Where are you going to put the 1st keg, once you pressurize it, and are doing the 2nd keg?

I had planned to leave it in the fridge but have since bought another keg and a manifold.
 
I know the picture was posted, but I had to post the video to go with it...

 
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