Moving beer from keg to keg

I realize this is kind of a strange question, but here goes.

The Details:
I racked a recent beer into a 5 gallon corny last week and I have been letting it condition since then. I have not carbonated the beer yet, its just sitting there in the cool basement conditioning. I realized that I am going to want to take some beer to a party this coming Sunday. I have two 2.5 gallon corny kegs that would be perfect for this, but I wasn't bright enough to start the beer out there. I think I'd only need one for the party, not both.

The Questions:
Could I transfer half of the beer from the 5 gallon corny to the 2.5 gallon corny by using CO2 pressure? If so, how would I know when to stop? Would the 2.5 gallons left in the 5 gallon corny carbonate correctly after I did this?

The Fallback:
Since I haven't carbed yet, I could always grab my autosiphon and rack to the 2.5 gallon cornys that way. The problem I see there is the additional risk of exposure to oxygen and other contaminates.

Thanks for the input

Yes, you can do this easily. Just make up a transfer hose with two liquid out connectors and a piece of hose. Purge the empty keg with CO2 and either release the safety valve or remove the gas post. Connect both kegs with the transfer hose and set your regulator down to a couple of psi. Hook up the gas to the full keg and it will transfer the beer, stop the transfer by removing the gas from the original keg. You can monitor the process by looking through the gas in hose of the new keg to figure out when to pull the plug or wait for beer to come out the release valve (this will mean the keg is overfilled a little though. You could also remove the lid during the transfer, but be ready to remove it from the gas quickly.

The 2.5 gallons left will still carbonate just fine, you'll just use up a little more CO2 due to the additional head space.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't thought of removing the gas post. I think that's the piece I was missing.

You could weigh it or feel for the temperature change.

Rotate the pressure relief so it stays open. It will make the transfer faster & you'll know when the 2.5 is full (it will be really obvious ). When I am splitting a keg, I use a teeter board; one keg on each end. When it balances, I have two half full kegs.

Just take the 5 gallon keg and drink half.

fifelee said:

Just take the 5 gallon keg and drink half.

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Simple and to the point. I like it!

fifelee said:

Just take the 5 gallon keg and drink half.

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More beer is always a much happier time than to little beer.... and thats a fact!

fifelee said:

Just take the 5 gallon keg and drink half.

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That's the plan.

Just open the cap on the recieving keg and watch it, if you purge the empty with CO2, since it is heavier than air, you maintain a blanket above the beer. seems like extra work removing the gas pin

budbo said:

Just open the cap on the recieving keg and watch it, if you purge the empty with CO2, since it is heavier than air, you maintain a blanket above the beer. seems like extra work removing the gas pin

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Yeah that occurred to me as I was purging the 2.5 gal keg. I did exactly that. Everything went very smoothly. Thanks all for the advice.