keeping corny keg cold at parties

[stickyfinger]

Hi,

I have been debating a good way to keep corny kegs cold at parties. i have been using 5 gallon cylindrical beverage coolers, but they are kind of annoying and don't really fit a corny keg well. what have others tried that seem to work well?

i was thinking of 10G cylindrical coolers, neoprene sleeves, the insulated brewbag sack with ice sleeve, etc.

 

[day_trippr]

I use a 30 gallon plastic kitchen trash can filled with ice.
Simple, cheap, effective

Cheers!

 

[mongoose33]

Couldn't you put the corny in a 5-gallon bucket and fill that with ice?

 

[murphyslaw]

I've repurposed my old Gatorade style mash tun as a keg cooler.

 

[MotoGP1000]

Couldn't you put the corny in a 5-gallon bucket and fill that with ice?

I plan to do this over the weekend. Hopefully a small 5gallons pale is big enough to work

 

[jjw5015]

a party tub holds 2

 

[Cavpilot2000]

A 10 gallon coverted cooler mash tun works great and is tall enough to get about 4/5 of the height of the keg in contact with ice as opposed to a bucket or 5 gal cooler, where only the bottom half of the keg will be in contact.

I ran into this issue for years at my annual Oktoberfest party. You might think since you are (probably) drawing from the bottom, that it only matters if the bottom half of your keg is chilled, but it's not that simple. If the bottom half is chilled and the upper half is allowed to get warm, the warming portion will begin to off-gas, increasing headspace pressure. As a result, you will get foaming, especially if you are serving from a picnic/cobra tap, and ultimately the beer will become flatter from off-gassing.

 

[stickyfinger]

i've borrowed the 10Gs before and it worked well as you say. what i do now is use my two 5Gs and just set the pressure really low on the reg and they usually serve themselves from head pressure as you say.

 

[lump42]

Hi,

I have been debating a good way to keep corny kegs cold at parties. i have been using 5 gallon cylindrical beverage coolers, but they are kind of annoying and don't really fit a corny keg well. what have others tried that seem to work well?

i was thinking of 10G cylindrical coolers, neoprene sleeves, the insulated brewbag sack with ice sleeve, etc.

If you take kegs to parties a lot, you could look at getting Pancho's Keg Cooler. It's a 20 gallon cooler, so the same diameter as the 10 gallon just tall enough to cover the whole keg and put the lid on. They have versions with a tap out the front, so you could put a flow control faucet on it. https://www.panchosbrewinglab.com/

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I made this out of a 5 gallon cooler, but it fit 2.5 gallon kegs (just transfer from a 5 gallon to fill the 2.5 gallon. Recently upgraded to an intertap FC faucet.
It is fully enclosed with gas supply and enough room for ice or gel sheets around the keg.

 

[odie]

dude that is a sweet setup...

that little bottle? can you fill it off your bigger bottles and if so, would it hold enough to run the entire 2.5 gal keg?

 

[MotoGP1000]

I made this out of a 5 gallon cooler, but it fit 2.5 gallon kegs (just transfer from a 5 gallon to fill the 2.5 gallon. Recently upgraded to an intertap FC faucet.
It is fully enclosed with gas supply and enough room for ice or gel sheets around the keg.
View attachment 647718 View attachment 647719

That’s amazing

 

[bleme]

I borrow one of these from work. It holds 3 corny kegs or a 15.5 gal sanke.

 

[riceral]

I recently bought one of these:
https://www.cool-brewing.com/products/coolbrewcorny-5g-3-0-bundle

Our Homebrew club had a pouring at a local Oktoberfest and it kept my keg cold in the Florida heat for the four hours we were at the event.

 

[camonick]

Hi,

I have been debating a good way to keep corny kegs cold at parties. i have been using 5 gallon cylindrical beverage coolers, but they are kind of annoying and don't really fit a corny keg well. what have others tried that seem to work well?

i was thinking of 10G cylindrical coolers, neoprene sleeves, the insulated brewbag sack with ice sleeve, etc.

I use a 30 gallon plastic kitchen trash can filled with ice.
Simple, cheap, effective
Cheers!

I use the same thing as @day_trippr with a length of hose long enough to balance the system and a picnic tap and it works well. 1.5-2 big bags of ice and you’re good to go.

 

[Yooper]

Build a cheap portable kegerator!

This easily holds 3+ five gallon kegs and a 5 pound c02 tank and tons of ice.

 

[jcav]

Here is mine.

It fits a 5 gallon keg too!

 

[DiscDuffer]

Build a cheap portable kegerator!

This easily holds 3+ five gallon kegs and a 5 pound c02 tank and tons of ice.

What size is that? I would need to fit it in the back seat of my car. (Also a way to lock it so it does not get used as an actual trash can.) I looked at some this summer and they all had the "hook" on the one side for the trash truck to dump it. The hook took up too much room to make it usable. Right now I use a small plastic barrel that I lined with insulation (looks like foil covered bubble rap), lasts hours longer than just the barrel.

 

[balrog]

I go simple.
Since the dip tube is at the bottom, only hte bottom of the keg needs to be cold
Put it in a 5gal bucket with ice
It'll keep the bottom half cold.

 

[Yooper]

What size is that? I would need to fit it in the back seat of my car. (Also a way to lock it so it does not get used as an actual trash can.) I looked at some this summer and they all had the "hook" on the one side for the trash truck to dump it. The hook took up too much room to make it usable. Right now I use a small plastic barrel that I lined with insulation (looks like foil covered bubble rap), lasts hours longer than just the barrel.

I don't know the exact size- I bought it at Ace. It's pretty big, but not as huge as those that get picked up by the garbage truck.
There is sheet/foam insulation lining this, pieced in there.

 

[6Tap]

Great ideas!
You guys have inspired me to build a portable draft system.
I’m thinking either wine barrel or framing something small out of recycled wood....

Thanks for the ideas!! [emoji482]

 

[Cavpilot2000]

dude that is a sweet setup...

that little bottle? can you fill it off your bigger bottles and if so, would it hold enough to run the entire 2.5 gal keg?

No, you have to buy them. They are single-use and they’re not cheap. Nor are the mini regulators. And those are fickle and not terribly reliable. All-in-all, it works but getting the gas pressure dialed in can be frustrating. They do hold enough CO2 to push a whole 2.5 gal though.

I am thinking about switching to a paintball bottle that I can refill and mounting it to the outside.

 

[brew703]

Someone used a new garbage can on wheels. Lined the inside with foam, put a valve at the bottom and put 2 or 3 taps. Alot cheaper than buying a round orange water cooler.
Maybe it's called keezer on wheels or something like that.

 

[Bigdaddyale]

A 10 gallon coverted cooler mash tun works great and is tall enough to get about 4/5 of the height of the keg in contact with ice as opposed to a bucket or 5 gal cooler, where only the bottom half of the keg will be in contact.

I ran into this issue for years at my annual Oktoberfest party. You might think since you are (probably) drawing from the bottom, that it only matters if the bottom half of your keg is chilled, but it's not that simple. If the bottom half is chilled and the upper half is allowed to get warm, the warming portion will begin to off-gas, increasing headspace pressure. As a result, you will get foaming, especially if you are serving from a picnic/cobra tap, and ultimately the beer will become flatter from off-gassing.

The keg is under pressure- how can the beer off gas?

 

[Cavpilot2000]

The keg is under pressure- how can the beer off gas?

So here is what happens:
you put your keg in a bucket of ice because “the dip tube pulls from the bottom so you only need to chill the bottom half of the keg”.

The upper half, where your headspace is warms up. Now let’s say you carb’d your beer and has it in equilibrium with 2.4 volumes of CO2 at 10 PSI and 38 degrees.
That is the equivalent of 22 psi at 60 degrees. So your warm weather party allows the upper half and the head space to warm up to 60 (pretty easy on a hot day). Now that head space is at 22 PSI. The head pressure is what pushes the beer, so serving from a cobra tap at 22 PSI, your beer comes out like a fire extinguisher. The only way you and your friends can serve it without blasting foam is to pull the PRV, which works for a few seconds but pressure quickly builds again so you repeat.
Eventually you get down to where all of the beer is below the ice level and it stops doing this, but by then your beer is significantly flatter.

So no, it doesn’t off-gas in the beginning, but the CO2 in the head space expands dramatically, increasing pressure. Then YOU pull the PRV to release pressure, which then causes the beer to off gas because it is no longer in equilibrium.

 

[odie]

I would think the regulator would not put more gas it then. So even as temps and pressure increases. Tapping the keg on a fairly regular basis should help bring the serving pressure back down. At least somewhat?

well just keep it iced well...should be easy enough to keep the whole keg iced if it's inside a coleman jug, just screw the lid on and the keg can't rise/float up out of the ice bath as is empties

 

[balrog]

Good point about the upper part warming and thereby holding less CO2 due to temp

In practice, the 5gal bucket with ice keeps > 1/2 the keg at icewater temp (bucket typically 12" high, corny keg typically 23" high and 3-6" of that is handle so the beer is really about 17-18" high so really you're keeping 2/3 of the beer cold)

Then, there's the whole "find thirstier friends to drink it below the icewater level" trick you can try.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Trash can with wheels and second hand tower, will hold 3 ball locks and CO2 tank.

 

[bracconiere]

i thought that you just needed to chill the beer and not the keg? isn't that what jockey boxes are for?

https://www.morebeer.com/products/j...84XDDH6oJq8QN0nFmodzvowYGhy2JyPYaAr5oEALw_wcB

 

[Cavpilot2000]

i thought that you just needed to chill the beer and not the keg? isn't that what jockey boxes are for?

https://www.morebeer.com/products/j...84XDDH6oJq8QN0nFmodzvowYGhy2JyPYaAr5oEALw_wcB

Jockey boxes work best when you still keep the kegs cold. They also have the advantage of long lines, which help with mitigating the overpressurization.

You can’t avoid the physics when you have a volume of CO2 increasing in temperature. It expands pretty dramatically and as in my example above, it doesn’t take more than about a 20 degree increase to double the head pressure (which is the propulsion force for the beer).

Trust me from experience with the only chilling half the keg and serving from a cobra/picnic tap. Total fire extinguisher gusher once the upper half and head space has had time to warm up. I dealt with that problem for years at my annual Oktoberfest party.