Help me figure out some kegging logistics?

[fleabagmatt]

Okay, here's the situation (Feel free to read that in Will Smith's voice), my current setup is a small fridge with just enough room in it for 1 corny keg and my 20# Co2 tank, I'm currently using a picnic tap to dispense. I brewed an IPA 5 days ago, and today I'm brewing a batch of Centennial Blonde. My hope is to have the blond tapped and ready to drink by December 13th, so about 18 days. I'm trying to figure out the timing of kegging these two beers, knowing that I can only have one keg on gas and in the fridge at a time.

I do have another fridge that is my fermentation chamber that I think I can squeeze a keg into, but it couldn't be connected to Co2.

The IPA needs to dry hop, but I was planning on trying to dry hop in the keg - never done that before.

So, should I keg the IPA first, force carb and dry hop and then move to the fermentation fridge under pressure, then go ahead and keg/force carb/serve the blonde? Or would I be better off moving the IPA to secondary and letting it sit until after the blonde is gone, then keg and dry hop?

Ideally I would have skipped brewing the IPA for now, but it wasn't until after it was done that I realized I needed to get the blonde going asap (It's my mother-in-law's favorite and she'll be in town on the 12th.) If there was a way to do it without drilling holes, I would love to move the CO2 tank out of the fridge and have both kegs in there, but I am planning on getting a bigger fridge soon to convert to a kegerator and don't want to hack this one up.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Could you naturally prime one of the beers? Just add priming sugar to the keg and let it work. Not sure how long it takes but if you want to the blonde ready in 18 days you could have that one on gas and naturally prime the IPA.

 

[fleabagmatt]

Hmm, I hadn't thought about doing that. I'm new to kegging and am not sure how that works (I assume just like bottling, but on a larger scale), but I'll look into it. How would I handle the dry hopping if priming the kegs with sugar?

 

[SanPancho]

You can do naturally carb. But without a pressure gauge it's hard to know when it's fully carbed. And now you've got a ton of dry hop and carbing yeast in your keg. It's definitely doable.

I might advise that you could put both kegs in the fridge, and then just top them off with co2 a few times a day. Do it like a boost carb- 30-40psi for say 2-3 days, then lower it to serving pressure for a week. pour samples from picnic tap to test when it's ready.

But I would note that typically you'd want to dry hop well north of serving temps, so if you do it cold then just go longer in time.

 

[artichoke]

Another solution would be to dry hop the IPA in primary (or secondary) and then bottle condition it, if you are not opposed to doing that.

- Artichoke

 

[fleabagmatt]

Yeah, I think I've decided to follow Artichoke's plan and just bottle the IPA. Hopefully before too long I can get my hands on a better keg fridge and set it up so I don't have issues.