Transporting kegs 3 hours away

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jaw005

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brewed 5 beers (porter, amber, ipa, cream, blonde) for my wedding happening in 2 weeks. I only have room to keep 3 kegs cold in my kegerator before transporting them.
once 2 are carbed up is it ok if they warm up to room temperature? and then put them in tubs of ice a few hours before the wedding?

will be serving from a 5 tap jockey box with cold plate

have never moved full kegs before so any recommendations are helpful.
 
Should be good, commercial kegs travel well, and you're not going to leave them in the vehicle at 120F, are you? Not that temp hurts finished beer per say but you don't want too much pressure to build up.
 
I've never done what you're talking about. I have transported full kegs for a party though. I would recommend transporting early and leave as much time to settle as possible. I would also test all beers for carbonation and taste ahead of time. The beer will get shaken up and could be cloudy if there's anything settled in the bottom (yeast).

Have you ever used the jockey box/cold-plate setup? If not, I would set the whole thing up for a test run before serving at wedding. Get it serving all 5 beers the way you want it in advance so you don't have any surprises on the big day. I wouldn't think the significant other would be too happy if you're "screwing with the stupid beer stuff" when you're supposed enjoying the party.
 
jmcquesten said:
I've never done what you're talking about. I have transported full kegs for a party though. I would recommend transporting early and leave as much time to settle as possible. I would also test all beers for carbonation and taste ahead of time. The beer will get shaken up and could be cloudy if there's anything settled in the bottom (yeast).

Have you ever used the jockey box/cold-plate setup? If not, I would set the whole thing up for a test run before serving at wedding. Get it serving all 5 beers the way you want it in advance so you don't have any surprises on the big day. I wouldn't think the significant other would be too happy if you're "screwing with the stupid beer stuff" when you're supposed enjoying the party.
Click to expand...

we got a brewer buddy to help out our bartenders set it all up the day of.
 
I use used wine kit pails and one with the bottom cut out to stack it on other pail to transport and use with my cold plate set up. I put keg in stacked pail and add ice. I leave it on ice when I hook up to my plate chiller that is inside a cooler with ice on the plate. This allows prechilling before iiiithe beer goes to the plate. This works well in hot Arizona when I do draft parties. Make sure you have beer flowing through the lines before you add ice to the plate because if you freeze star san or fresh water in your plate, you will not be a happy camper. I always burp my kegs before I install the CO2 lines so no foam can go up your lines and no foam will happen at the tap. I use 10 psi to serve 2.4 carbonated beer.
 
If you have one extra empty keg, you can eliminate the possibility of cloudy pours by transferring an original keg to the empty keg, cleaning the just emptied keg, and repeating until all original kegs have been transfered.

The detailed process is as follows:
  1. Fill the empty keg with Star San until it overflows the PRV. (I fill from a bottling bucket into the liquid out post with the PRV open, and a disconnected QD on the gas post.),
  2. Blow the Star San out of the keg with CO2 (save the Star San for the next keg.)
  3. Put a length of beer line (with a liquid QD on each end) between the liquid posts of the full keg and the CO2 purged keg. Open the PRV on the "empty" keg, and push the beer to it with CO2 on the full keg. If you really want to avoid air exposure during the transfer, put the beer line on the empty keg first, and blow the air out of it by pressurizing the empty keg, and pushing on the QD pin to blow CO2 thru the line.
  4. Close the PRV and remove the jumper line from the two kegs. Attach a CO2 line to the just filled keg, and purge the headspace 5 times at 20 - 30 psi (yes, even after the Star San plus CO2 purge there is still enough O2 in the headspace to cause oxidation.)
  5. Vent the keg one last time, and pressurize as appropriate for the carb level and current beer temp. The keg can now be allowed to come to room temp, and be transported without issues.
  6. Clean the just emptied keg, and repeat the process for each additional keg of beer.
  7. Serve clear beer at your wedding.

Best wishes to you and your new spouse.

Brew on :mug:
 
If I am transporting a beer I always carbonate and cool beer down in my keezer. I then pour a beer to see if it is crystal clear and then do the above. The first part beer may be partly cloudy. This allows you to focus on other things like the bride! Great method above.
 

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