Best way to plan a homebrew tasting/crawfish party?

[bigken462]

Hey guys, I have a few questions on kegging and serving for a crawfish boil/homebrew tasting I’m planning for either May 10th or 24th. To date, I have a selection of eight beers bottled and ready. I also have a Blue moon which will be ready to bottle in the next few days after 3 weeks in the carboys. I have two more in the chest freezer bubbling away that was brewed on the 11th and 15th of this month. I plan on letting them ride out my customary 3 week cycle. My chest freezer is only 7cf so not a lot of room there to store much else.

Last night I said WTH and pulled the lever on a two keg system from NB. In addition, I ordered one more AG Irish Red kit. I figure it will need three weeks as well.

My dilemma is I don’t yet have a plan as to how I’m going to serve these up cold. My initial plan was to transfer 15 or so bottles of each beer to the chest freezer and cool them down to serving temps if I don’t have anything fermenting and then use my kitchen fridge for the rest of them. However, I'm hoping I can keep the foot traffic to a minimum in my house. Spilled beer on my floors and carpet just ruins a good party.

Now that I have these two kegs on the way, that throws another curve at me. I’m thinking about buying a used mini fridge or another small chest freezer, but funds are getting tight. Lol Obviously I will have to find something.

I guess what I need to know is, can I transfer two of the newest brewed batches to these kegs and carb them in the closet at room temps until I figure out what to do about the fridge/freezer? I have several 15-20 gallon galvanized wash tubs I’ve used to ice down BMC beer in the past. I’m hoping I can put some of these homebrews in milk crates, ice them down and then after showing everyone the proper way to pour a homebrew, turn them loose on their own to drink to their hearts content.

I don’t know how fast NB will get this stuff to me, I’m assuming at least by Thursday or Friday. The earliest brew day I could have for the Irish Red would be the following week sometime. I should add also, that I’ve never touched a keg system before. This will be uncharted territory for me. I don't have any idea how soon to keg them, how long to let the sit and carb etc.

I would like for my friends to be able to have a good sample choice of what will be then 12-13 brews to choose from. I don’t want them leaving with a bad taste of what homebrew is like. With the exception of a porter, everything I have has been very drinkable and clear. I want them to have a fun time and perhaps gain some brewing buddies out of it.

Below is what will be on the menu served with tons of mudbugs, corn, taters and sausage!

Pumpkin Spice Porter
Kolsch
Hard Cherry Limeade
The Light House
Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Cream of three crops
New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale
Blue Moon (In Secondary almost done)
Reissdorf Kolsch (Primary X 5 days)
Abita Amber (Primary X 2 days)
Irish Red Ale (Not yet brewed)

How would ya’ll go about doing this?

 

[AintLifeGrand]

You can transfer the two batches you have fermenting now to the kegs when you get them, prime them with some sugar (most people say use half the amount of sugar you would use for bottles to get the same carbonation so about 2.5 ounces for 5 gallons should do you good) and put them away at room temp for a couple weeks and they will carb up fine.

If you have co2 on hand for your kegging system shoot a blast of co2 in each keg after you put your priming sugar in to seat the lids good. if you dont have co2 but that time yet, just make sure you lube the lid gasket good (which you should do anyway) and you will probably be ok.

after a couple weeks of priming you will be ready to hook up to gas and serve. cheers!

 

[Owly055]

In the "good ol' days" we used tubs of ice..... just set the kegs or bottles in a tub of some sort and filled it with ice. Sometimes salted it for extra cold serving temp. I used to carry beer to work for lunch in the saddle bags on my motorcycle....... filled with ice. Most notable was a yard sale in 1977 ...... the sign said "yard sale free beer". Two kegs of beer in two tubs of ice, we sold over $4k worth of stuff in two days and had a good time..... The available beer in those days was mostly garbage..... We did find a keg of Blitz Bavarian Dark (a Henry Weinhard product) though. The cops circled the block constantly. Drinking age was 18 in those days, but we were religious about who we served to. You don't have to be fancy......just deliver cold beer!

H.W.

Hey guys, I have a few questions on kegging and serving for a crawfish boil/homebrew tasting I’m planning for either May 10th or 24th. To date, I have a selection of eight beers bottled and ready. I also have a Blue moon which will be ready to bottle in the next few days after 3 weeks in the carboys. I have two more in the chest freezer bubbling away that was brewed on the 11th and 15th of this month. I plan on letting them ride out my customary 3 week cycle. My chest freezer is only 7cf so not a lot of room there to store much else.

Last night I said WTH and pulled the lever on a two keg system from NB. In addition, I ordered one more AG Irish Red kit. I figure it will need three weeks as well.

My dilemma is I don’t yet have a plan as to how I’m going to serve these up cold. My initial plan was to transfer 15 or so bottles of each beer to the chest freezer and cool them down to serving temps if I don’t have anything fermenting and then use my kitchen fridge for the rest of them. However, I'm hoping I can keep the foot traffic to a minimum in my house. Spilled beer on my floors and carpet just ruins a good party.

Now that I have these two kegs on the way, that throws another curve at me. I’m thinking about buying a used mini fridge or another small chest freezer, but funds are getting tight. Lol Obviously I will have to find something.

I guess what I need to know is, can I transfer two of the newest brewed batches to these kegs and carb them in the closet at room temps until I figure out what to do about the fridge/freezer? I have several 15-20 gallon galvanized wash tubs I’ve used to ice down BMC beer in the past. I’m hoping I can put some of these homebrews in milk crates, ice them down and then after showing everyone the proper way to pour a homebrew, turn them loose on their own to drink to their hearts content.

I don’t know how fast NB will get this stuff to me, I’m assuming at least by Thursday or Friday. The earliest brew day I could have for the Irish Red would be the following week sometime. I should add also, that I’ve never touched a keg system before. This will be uncharted territory for me. I don't have any idea how soon to keg them, how long to let the sit and carb etc.

I would like for my friends to be able to have a good sample choice of what will be then 12-13 brews to choose from. I don’t want them leaving with a bad taste of what homebrew is like. With the exception of a porter, everything I have has been very drinkable and clear. I want them to have a fun time and perhaps gain some brewing buddies out of it.

Below is what will be on the menu served with tons of mudbugs, corn, taters and sausage!

Pumpkin Spice Porter
Kolsch
Hard Cherry Limeade
The Light House
Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Cream of three crops
New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale
Blue Moon (In Secondary almost done)
Reissdorf Kolsch (Primary X 5 days)
Abita Amber (Primary X 2 days)
Irish Red Ale (Not yet brewed)

How would ya’ll go about doing this?

 

[bigken462]

Yeah, I thought about icing the kegs down in a 100 gallon cattle tub. Lol, but was unsure how moving them around would disturb any settlement in bottoms of them. I'm hoping I can procure up a used fridge from Craigs list w/o costing too much. I'm spent out to be honest.