Kegging at the mercy of ambient temperatures

[deputyandy]

I have a standard 5 gallon firestone keg yet no way to chill it outside of the temperature in my uncooled/unheated stairway landing. Currently have no fridge space but i might get a small fridge soon. In the meantime, is there any way to get a beer carbed up with ambient temperatures and a 5lb CO2 tank? I feel like i'd have to set the regulator ridiculously high to even get close to the volumes of co2 i'd like in a belgian beer.

 

[PickledFetus]

Treat it like one big bottle and add priming sugar like you were going to bottle condition it.

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[deputyandy]

Funny thing. I split the batch between 12 750 bottles and the rest went into the keg. I added priming sugar in the bottling bucket then split the batch. I added CO2 to the keg to preserve it. I thought with 2.5 gallons of headspace it would need help to get the CO2 into solution, so i've tried pushing it along with the CO2 to no avail.

 

[kbuzz]

I would hit it with the CO2 just to seal and purge the O2...but yeah...use some priming sugar just like you would with vottling.

 

[deputyandy]

Don't know if this helps, but the pours are all foam. like alllllllllllll foam right now. beer is only slightly carbed

 

[Yooper]

Don't know if this helps, but the pours are all foam. like alllllllllllll foam right now. beer is only slightly carbed

Yes, warm beer foams like a SOB. That's one of the issues with pouring warm beer out of a keg.

 

[deputyandy]

Good to know. I was worried my lines were too short. Would purging headspace alleviate foam or am I stuck with it?

 

[JuanMoore]

Beer can only hold so much CO2 in solution at a given temperature. The warmer the temp, the less CO2 it will retain, regardless of how carbonated you're able to get it in the keg. You can likely get it to foam slightly less and retain slightly more CO2 by using longer lines, but the temp will limit how much improvement you get. Depending on what the actual ambient temps are, you might be able to get away with lightly carbed beers. For higher carb levels you need to either chill the keg, or run the beer through something that chills it as it pours, like a jockey box.