For The Broke: Keeping Your Keg Cold

[hardrain]

Just got into kegging this weekend, and was lucky enough to have plenty of snow outside to keep it cold for three days.

Well I've been working and getting lazy and not keeping the beer cold: is this a problem? If bottle don't need to be chilled, why should a keg...that was my thought process, but then I read in a press release that Great Lakes Brewery needs to keep their beer cold from brewery to patron because it's not pasturized, just like my beer.

So what's the deal? Will my beer eventually go bad if I do the chill/warm/chill thing? If this is a problem, what do some of you who also can't afford a kegerator right now do?

Thanks!

 

[weirdboy]

Over time beer changes flavor. Over long times and at higher temperatures, you can get off flavors such as oxidation, phenols, etc.

Commercial breweries worry a lot about this because they are after consistency in their products. Sitting on a truck or in a warehouse at 90+ degrees for days is not good for anyone's beer, regardless of whether it is pasteurized.

 

[hardrain]

so what i'm gathering is that going 40F to 70F to 40F is not ideal but probably not dangerous?

 

[weirdboy]

What can happen when you do that is the proteins that drop out of solution at 40F go back into solution at 70F and form bonds that can cause a permanent chill haze. If you don't care about hazy beer then it's not a big deal IMO.