brewing for a wedding

I'm brewing 40 gal. of homebrew for my brother-in-laws wedding in July. Kegging and carbonation will happen at around 1200 feet. Wedding is at around sea level and several hundred miles away. Due to number of kegs I will have to force carbonate at room temp <70*. I plan on building a big ice chest to haul them in so they won't get hot in the back of my truck.

Fairly new to kegging and have some questions:

1. Will the carbonation temp. vs. the serving temp create problems?
2. Will the elevation change create problems?
3. Will the agitation inherent with a 360+ mile journey create problems?
4. Anything else I need to consider?
5. Kind of unrelated, but how do I fix an over carbonated keg? If I bleed off pressure there's just not enough pressure to serve . . . when I turn the pressure back up it's still foamy.

Thanks!

1. Yes. You are going to be hard pressed to carbonate @ 70*
2. Not really sure. Call a distributer on that one. They can help you.
3. Yes. If you keep them at serving pressure while you travel. Drop PSI to about 10 for the trip.
4. You need to get the beer cold to carbonate
5. What is the temp of the beer? When was it moved last? How long are your serving lines? How clean is your tap? Lots of things to think about.

1. If it has to be cold to carbonate, i don't have enought fridge space to do them all at once. Can I carbonate at serving temp, bring it back to room temp to make room for other kegs, then chill all before serving?

5. 38*, 5 days ago, about 3', very clean (cleaned with brew clean between kegs)

If you chill a day or 2 before serving you "Should" be ok. You may struggle with foam issues though.

But did you take the tap apart and clean out all the passage ways? Is this a standard tap? 3 feet of serving line very well may be 1 of your issues. I would bleed off all the pressure and do this for 2 days. On day 3 turn pressure to about 3 psi and push a beer. You really should have longer lines for some back pressure on the system. I run 15 feet of 1/4" beverage tubing on my system.
Good luck
Jay

I'd also do a closed transfer of all the kegs before transporting them. This will prevent stirring up the yeast and let you serve clear beer.

Sounds like a big job, but you don't want to serve 40 gallons of fart juice!

Bull

Since you have two months, why not carb with sugar in the kegs? You're storing them at 70*, so it should be fine. You could crash cool, then closed transfer a couple of kegs at a time.

How early are you going to the wedding? if the kegs could sit overnight it should settle them down quite a bit.

B

Jaybird said:

But did you take the tap apart and clean out all the passage ways? Is this a standard tap?

Click to expand...

Yes, disassembled entire system and soaked in Brew Clean. Standard tap.

bad coffee said:

Since you have two months, why not carb with sugar in the kegs? You're storing them at 70*, so it should be fine. You could crash cool, then closed transfer a couple of kegs at a time.

How early are you going to the wedding? if the kegs could sit overnight it should settle them down quite a bit.

B

Click to expand...

I plan to get there a couple days ahead of time and will deliver kegs to reception site at that time.

AllHoppedUp said:

1. Will the carbonation temp. vs. the serving temp create problems?
2. Will the elevation change create problems?
3. Will the agitation inherent with a 360+ mile journey create problems?
4. Anything else I need to consider?
5. Kind of unrelated, but how do I fix an over carbonated keg? If I bleed off pressure there's just not enough pressure to serve . . . when I turn the pressure back up it's still foamy.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

the difference between carbonation temp and serving temp won't be a problem as long as you carb at the right pressure. Since liquid absorbs carbonation at different rates depending on temp, you need to carbonate at a higher pressure. There are calculators on the Internet to figure it out exactly but it should be between 25 and 28 psi depending on style and desired final volumes. When you chill it down to serving temp The increase in absorption rate will allow the gas to dissolve into solution and be properly carbonated.

Your altitude difference is a matter of .05 atmospheres, so it will affect it, but nothing that can't be stabilized with a day at sea level. If you want it to be right on my guess is you could multiply .95 by your desired end volumes of carbonation before plugging it into the carb pressure calculator.

As long as your kegs have reached the correct level of carbonation you can disconnect them from the air and transport them just fine. Once carbonated, the gas in the beer and the pressure of the gas in the headspace are at an equilibrium. As long as the gas can't get in or out of that equilibrium, it will be fine. As someone else mentioned, you might stir up some stuff, but the carb will be fine.

To fix the over carb issue, you can basically do the reverse of a shake carb. Bleed off the air in the keg. Now you've changed that equilibrium by removing that headspace pressure keeping the gas in solution. Gas won't come out of solution right away though, but if you disturb it, it will. Shake the keg, and you'll see the needle rise. This is the gas coming out of solution and starting to fill the head space. When the needle stops rising, you've reached that equilibrium again and pulled some of the gas out of solution. Let it sit a couple minutes, then repeat the bleed, shake till needle stops climbing, rest process until the pressure the needle stops at is your desired psi.

Tastybrew.com has one of the carbing pressure calculators on their site.