How long will keged beer keep?

[Browarmistrz]

sorry for the noob question but im about to get into kegging and im new to most of this stuff. my new brew rig isnt ready yet but i will be making 10 gal batches and kegging only 5 gal of it (since i only have one corny so far). the rest is going into bottles.

my question is how fast do i have to drink the 5 kegged gals once i tap it? if im not gonna be drinking it for a few days i'll obviously clean the line/faucet after use. im concerned only b/c homebrew isnt pasteurized.

thanks and again, sry for the noobness.

EDIT: oh and sry i posted in the wrong section :/ if a mod could move it, that'd be great

 

[Walker]

If you are using CO2 to serve your kegged beer, then it will last for a very very very very long time. It won't spoil. It'll last as long as your beer in the bottles.

I took break from brewing for a little over a year and when I got back into it, I found that I had two kegs that still had a gallon or so of beer in them. They had been sitting in my garage, going through large temp fluxuations with the seasons changing. I tasted them and they were good. One was an IPA that had lost it's big hop character, but it was still a drinkable beer. The other was a porter that might have actually been better than when I was actively drinking the 12+ months earlier.

 

[Walker]

my question is how fast do i have to drink the 5 kegged gals once i tap it? if im not gonna be drinking it for a few days i'll obviously clean the line/faucet after use. im concerned only b/c homebrew isnt pasteurized.

There is no need to clean your lines if you are not going to be drinking it for a few days. That's a little overkill. I never clean my lines, but I replace them about once a year and clean my taps at that time.

 

[porterpounder]

Ideally one will drink said keg before this question can arise.

Really, indefinitely without spoiling although, yes the beer will change. Most notably the hop flavor will change. Bitterness can remain about the same as alpha and beta acids keep the bitterness in balance.

 

[carrotmalt]

Ideally one will drink said keg before this question can arise.

Really, indefinitely without spoiling although, yes the beer will change. Most notably the hop flavor will change. Bitterness can remain about the same as alpha and beta acids keep the bitterness in balance.

The bitterness will subside over time as well.

 

[Browarmistrz]

There is no need to clean your lines if you are not going to be drinking it for a few days. That's a little overkill. I never clean my lines, but I replace them about once a year and clean my taps at that time.

yea? i heard somewhere that cheap ones (faucets, not lines) will stick unless you have perlick's.
i bought some european faucet since i just moved to poland for college.
here is what i bought (the yellow one)
http://allegro.pl/keg-do-pepsi-szybkozlaczki-kran-reduktor-i1280196438.html

 

[MyNameIsPaul]

So since I only have one picnic tap and 4 cornies, can I pressurize them all, and switch the tap around back and forth as needed to drink different beers, and not worry about the other kegs and their level of carb? Do I hit the kegs that are not in use with CO2 back to 30psi and not worry about it?

 

[BrewMoreBeers]

I would not store them at 30 psi for a long period as this would over carbonate the remaining beer. Carbonation is a function of pressure and temperature. Increasing the pressure to store would increase the volumes of CO2 in the beer.

Provided you purged all the air/O2 when you kegged the beer, the tapped keg pushed with CO2 is very similar to an unopened bottle. It will keep fine with little worry or maintenance.

Regarding cleaning the system... i agree that every few days seems like overkill. I clean mine: when i am board, when i change kegs, or every few weeks (which ever comes first).

 

[SouthernCross]

There is no need to clean your lines if you are not going to be drinking it for a few days. That's a little overkill. I never clean my lines, but I replace them about once a year and clean my taps at that time.

I'm in the same boat - just building kegerator setup and just kegged a batch the other day. I only know what I've read as far as kegerator and lines - do you really not clean lines? I have wondered how much is drama and how much reality when this discussion comes up.

 

[lumpher]

So since I only have one picnic tap and 4 cornies, can I pressurize them all, and switch the tap around back and forth as needed to drink different beers, and not worry about the other kegs and their level of carb? Do I hit the kegs that are not in use with CO2 back to 30psi and not worry about it?

get a line splitter and keep them all carbed. keeping a cold keg carbed at 30 psi should be good to shoot it a good 70 or 80 feet, too.

 

[beninan]

There is no need to clean your lines if you are not going to be drinking it for a few days. That's a little overkill. I never clean my lines, but I replace them about once a year and clean my taps at that time.

What about the faucets? I don't clean my lines, but what I have been doing after using them for the day is take a faucet plug, fill it with water, and push it back onto the faucet causing the water to spray out of the air hole and flush it. Is this not necessary/bad practice? Should I just put the faucet plug back on the dirty faucet and call it good?

 

[lumpher]

after i empty a keg, i rinse it, then fill it with iodophor water and put the co2 to it and run some out. it cleans everything that way

 

[mooseo]

A couple of years ago, I found a keg that I thought had sanitizer in it, but had actually held 2 gallons of Porter for maybe 3 years. It wasn't a great beer originally, and was definitely better after some aging in a hot garage. YMMV.

 

[trigger]

I second the never cleaning the lines notion with one caveat. I soak the ball lock QD's in starsan for about 15 mins each time I change kegs. I also replace my beer lines about once a year, and when I do everything except the tap handles gets a hot PBW soak. Since I've had my kegerator in one form or another for about 5 years I've never had an issue with beer spoiling, even when I had a too-strong porter that took 8 months to kill.

 

[Browarmistrz]

ok so i wont be cleaning the lines, but how do i go about faucet maintenance?