can you secondary in a keg?

[richl025]

This may be too obvious of a question <g>.

If you are not using fruit or oak chips or whatever - anything you need to get the beer off of, any problems with just racking to the keg, using a little low pressure to keep it sealed, and secondary in there?

I am thinking of trying a few beers that would benefit from a longer fermentation (like a stronger porter) and didn't want to tie up a fermenter for 3-4 months...

Do you get a lot of sediment in the corny keg when doing that? Is that any problem besides having to dump the first couple of pours?

 

[LLBeanJ]

Absolutely! Bulk aging in the keg is one of the best benefits of kegging.

After over 50 brews, I can count on one hand the ones I've actually secondaried before kegging. Most of my beers go from primary to keg within 2 weeks. A fair amount of sediment does accumulate in the bottom, but it settles out pretty quickly once it is refrigerated and tapped, and yeah, you will have to dump a pint or two, but there are no other issues. Once it clears it will stay that way unless the keg is moved.

 

[timdsmith72]

Sure nuff. Every time I make a lager, I lager in the keg. Straight from primary to keg. Stick it in the kegerator. Let it ride.


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[sandyeggoxj]

Yep! I have bulk aged barleywine and dryhopped IPA in the keg. I can then do a CO2 transfer to another keg to serve, or just leave it in the original keg and chill and serve. Works very well! The only problem is that you will find yourself collecting mass amounts of kegs. Well, is that really a problem? I just picked up my first 10-gallon ball lock keg. Fairly excited about that!

 

[richl025]

Yep! I have bulk aged barleywine and dryhopped IPA in the keg. I can then do a CO2 transfer to another keg to serve, or just leave it in the original keg and chill and serve. Works very well! The only problem is that you will find yourself collecting mass amounts of kegs. Well, is that really a problem? I just picked up my first 10-gallon ball lock keg. Fairly excited about that!

CO2 transfer? Haven't heard about this but makes sense from avoiding oxygenation standpoint...

Do you just have a hose with ball-lock connections to go from the "out" post on one keg to the "in" post on the other? Or do you go from "out" to "out" so the beer goes into the receiving keg via the tube?

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Out to out. It is more gentle. Purge the destination keg with co2 and you have complete o2 free transfers. Also clear beer on tap. I would dump the first little bit and then proceed to transfer once it is clear.