3 gallon corny

[Bigapinnc]

Poking at the idea of purchasing a three gallon corny.. I can't afford everything right now but would buy the set up with the co2 injection .. The question is.. How long does the beer keep? Should I have to worry about it if I wanted to Put another keg in the fridge and took it out for any length of time? Thanks .. I've always bottled and would like to get a good system

 

[subliminalurge]

If you fill the keg carefully, following the correct procedures, then it will "keep" just as long as it would have if you had bottled it. How long that is depends on the style of beer, some benefit from aging, some suffer from it.

But a 3 gallon keg? I have a hard time picturing that lasting long enough to "over age" any beer. And it DEFINITELY won't last long enough for the beer to go "bad".

If you follow good sanitation procedures, no beer, of any style, will ever go "bad", in the sense that you can't drink it. It will taste better and better as it approaches its peak, and then the taste will decline from there. But it will never spoil in the sense that a pound of hamburger will....

It'll always be decent beer, it just might not be as good as it could have been if you wait too long.

But in my house a 3 gallon keg would last about 2 days, so I have a hard time even imagining why one would be concerned about such a small amount of beer having a chance to go bad.....

 

[cuttsjp]

Kegging really is the cat's pajamas. Flushing your keg with CO2 will do wonders for preventing any oxidation-related spoilage of the beer, thus keeping it fresh for a VERY long time. If you take your keg out of the fridge for a little while there could be some variance in flavor, but just think about the journey that some kegs go through--often with extreme temperature changes--before being tapped. Comparatively, yours will be sitting pretty.

My one question would be why you are not just going for a 5 gallon kegging system. The used 5 gallon cornies are a way better deal and work just as well as new ones. Just a thought.

Once you start kegging, you'll never wanna go back. Enjoy!

 

[Bigapinnc]

Thanks but more talking about after drinking some and switching to a different keg, the original keg won't lose any carbonation? I will have to naturally carb these kegs

 

[Bigapinnc]

I would love to keg a five gallon system.. It would be much cheaper. The hard part right now for me is storing them and having its own fridge

It needs a good home

 

[subliminalurge]

I would love to keg a five gallon system.. It would be much cheaper. The hard part right now for me is storing them and having its own fridge

It needs a good home

Craigslist.

I see side-by-side refrigerators going for less than a hundred bucks almost every day. If you're patient enough to wait a week or two, you can probably score a "freezer on top" fridge for around $75. (side-by-side refrigerators suck)

And "storing" beer at room temps won't really hurt it a bit, as long as we're not talking about extreme lengths of time (multiple years). Just make sure it's carbed up, and get it chilled down before you serve, and it'll be just fine.

Around my neck of the woods the kegs of Bud Light, Coors Light, etc... get hauled around in non-refrigerated trailers behind semi-trucks in 95+ degree heat all summer long (probably upwards of 140 inside a metal trailer that's out in the sun all day), and once they get to the bar, get chilled, and tapped, they're no different than what you get in the winter.

Just keep the O2 out and you can enjoy a lot of wiggle room as far as storage temps go.

EDIT: That's storage temps. You still have to be careful with your fermentation temps.

 

[subliminalurge]

Thanks but more talking about after drinking some and switching to a different keg, the original keg won't lose any carbonation?

Kegs are really awesome for the simple fact that once you take the tapper off, they're sealed up again. And as long as you don't use a frat-boy hand pump on them, there's nothing but co2 in there, so they'll stay just as fresh as if you hadn't ever tapped them in the first place.

Kegs ****in' rock. They really do.

Having said that, 3 gallon kegs make me want to cry like a little girl. Not because they're a bad packaging system, but just because they're triple the price of a 5 gallon keg, and in my experience 5 gallons never lasts long enough. That's why I'm gathering the gear to move up to 10 gallon batches.

Even then, when you nail it and brew that really good one? You're going to wish you had 100 gallons of it.

When it comes to capacity, you should always err on the side of "too much". Bigger is always cheaper, and I don't think there's ever been a homebrewer in the history of the world who said "Golly Gee Whiz, I wish I had less beer around here...."