Kegging at Altitude

Does any one have any experience with kegging beer at ~7000' and then hauling it to a party at ~3000'?

My thoughts are it's a closed system so the changes in altitude shouldn't impact the pressure at which the beer is carbonated. However, I am new to kegging and I have never tried moving beer from my home.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

BoShimTang said:

Does any one have any experience with kegging beer at ~7000' and then hauling it to a party at ~3000'?

My thoughts are it's a closed system so the changes in altitude shouldn't impact the pressure at which the beer is carbonated. However, I am new to kegging and I have never tried moving beer from my home.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Click to expand...

I haven't done it personally, but I agree - the keg is a closed system, so 12 psi in the keg is 12 psi at any elevation.

The fly in the ointment is the pressure gauge itself.
I'm pretty sure gauge pressure /= absolute pressure with a change in altitude...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

The fly in the ointment is the pressure gauge itself.
I'm pretty sure gauge pressure /= absolute pressure with a change in altitude...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

If you carb at the lower elevation, disconnect the CO2, and bring it to a higher elevation, the volume of CO2 inside the keg is the same (the absolute pressure in the closed system is unchanged). You'll have to make some adjustments with your regulator and line length when you serve to keep things in balance because the gauge will read a different pressure due to differences in atmospheric pressure.

You won't need to worry about the line length for a one time event,at most you may need to turn down the pressure from what you would normally have it set at.
We just worked an event at sea (literally on a boat) and ran our jockey boxes and tap "tees" at the same or slightly under what we normally run them in Denver,for the most part no difference.

Thanks for the advice!