Kegging without refrigeration

[herbtarlicca]

My kegerator only holds 2 Pepsi kegs and I don't have any more cold storage. Can I keg my future batch and CO2 and bleed the air out? Is cellar temperature okay, or does it have to be refrigerated? It kind of seems like bottling... and as long as there is no air shouldn't it be okay? Or should I just leave it in a secondary with an airlock until I need it? Any thoughts would be great.

 

[Scut_Monkey]

It will be fine. You are right in that it's like transferring to a tertiary fermentor. Just purge the air off with CO2 and it will be oky doky with no refrigeration needed.

 

[shek]

Just prime/purge it with CO2 a few times, if primary fermentation is already over I wouldn't worry to much about the pressure building up in the keg (just think of it as a head start on force carbonation). I rack to a keg for a secondary with dry hopping at room temp often. My bigger concern has always been that the keg didn't seal properly, so I flick the blowoff valve every couple of days to make sure it's still holding pressure.

 

[WenValley]

+2 what they said. My keezer holds seven corneys plus the co2 tank. The keezer is full and I have one corney with five gallons of beer under pressure waiting for an empty tap. I have two more carboys that are holding beer in primary now for about a month, when I get a couple of more corneys, I'll keg and pressurize those two too.

I don't need more beer, I need more friends.

 

[Runyanka]

You could prime the waiting keg with dextrose vs co2 since you got the time, but not the cold space. Just add the appropriate amount of corn sugar, purge with co2 to get the oxygen out the headspace, and set it aside for 3 weeks or as long as you need to. Then just hook it up to gas and you got carbed, conditioned buurah!

 

[david_42]

I keep most of my beer in the conditioning cabinet, including some of those on tap. One of the barley wines is going on 6 years there.

 

[WenValley]

I keep most of my beer in the conditioning cabinet, including some of those on tap. One of the barley wines is going on 6 years there.

David: Sounds like you need more friends too! Having a barley wine for six years is a sad thing...

 

[EricCSU]

Here's a secondary question regarding this topic:

This is mostly regarding big beers...

After primary fermentation is over, it seems like a keg would work well for conditioning and aging. Is it better to condition the beer carbonated or without carbonation? Is it better to age the beer cold in a fridge or warm at room temp?

Hope this isn't too far off topic, but the OP question got me thinking about this question.

Eric