New kegger question

[mvcorliss]

I just bought a few used corny kegs and am saving for the rest of the set-up. I've seen plenty written on force carbing and serving line lengths, etc, but my question is more basic.

My freezer setup right now will allow storage of 3, maybe 4 kegs. I will need to get another freezer so I will have one to use to ferment in and one for serving out of, but it would still be about the same size. What do you do with excess kegs? Do you fill with beer, force carb (they have to be cold for that, right?). After that can they be stored at room temp until ready to tap? Or do you fill, pressurize enough to seal and remove O2 and then store at room temp until space is available in the freezer, then force carb and serve?

Any details on what YOU do would be great.

Michael

 

[kombat]

I carb. Then if I need fridge space, I'll take the keg out and store it at room temperature (fully carbed) until a space frees up in the kegerator.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I'm in the latter camp. Fill, purge O2, charge with CO2, and store in basement (65°-ish) until ready to tap. Can be chilled and ~75% carbed in about 36-48 hours.

 

[2BeerOrNot2Beer]

I currently have a fridge that I use for fermenatation or as a keggerator when I'm not fermenting. It only has capacity for 2 kegs, so thats great that you can fit 3 or 4. I often will let a beer ferment out, keg it, and put in a closet for a few weeks at room temp while I ferment a few more batches which I then also keg. Then when I'm done fermenting for awhile, I'll put 2 kegs in the fridge and cold condition them down at around 34 deg for a few weeks. Then I put them on co2 for a week and they are good to go. When I carb, I do it at whatever temperature I will be serving the beer at usually. But you can do it at any temperature (just find one of the charts that relate temperature, psi, and volumes of co2 and you will know what combination to use for whatever temperature your carbing at).

It is ok to leave them at room temp for awhile, but if you have the option, beer will always last longer when stored cold (In fact any beer can be improved with a minimum of a week or two of cold conditioning prior to serving). However, leaving the beer at room temp (in the 70's for me) for a bit after fermentation allows the yeast to work better at cleaning up the beer (and since its not primary fermentation the higher temps wont produce noticeable yeast byproducts because they are less active during this cleaning up phase). If you do this then removing 02 in the headspace isn't a bad idea. But if just for storage purposes (i.e not cleaning up the beer) then go ahead and fully carbonate the beer, in the fridge if you can, but otherwise room temp is fine.