Lagering in Keg?

[BriBri Springs]

I am using my chest freezer style kegerator as a fermentation chamber for my Hungarian Imperial Pilsner as it has very accurate temperature control. The problem is that I cannot tap a keg in the kegerator until the carboys are gone. My thought is that if I lager the Pilsner in kegs, I will have room for 2 on tap, and two conditioning/lagering, and therefore, can lager for as long as I want. Obviously I will have to pull the yeast off the bottom of the lagered kegs for the first pull or two, but other than that, do you feel that there any other factors that would make this a bad idea?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts and advice.
Cheers

 

[hottpeper13]

I can't cold crash so I get a lot of sediment in the keg but they clear in 2-4 pulls. A top draw wll prevent this but can't be cleaned on a keg washer so I just put up with a few cloudy one. I lager all mine in the keg with CO2.

 

[oakbarn]

We used to ferment in a Keg in a freezer and then did a transfer to a new keg to lager and serve. Since we keg everything, the first and sometimes second pull of almost any brew always have some sediment. You need to be careful not to shake or rattle your kegs or it may stir up some of the sediment that remain. You can get a floating pickup to avoid the sediment but we find it not much of an issue to go to that extreme. If we want to take a keg to an event, we normally close transfer a second time to a new keg after a few weeks. Just be sure to purge any kegs with CO2 prior to transfer and use a closed system to transfer. Do not move your keg you are transferring from or you will stir up the sediment and have to let it settle again for a couple of days.

 

[BrewMan13]

I ferment in regular carboys and almost always lager in kegs. So assuming that this is what you're doing, you'll be fine.

 

[jdauria]

I cold crash in fermenter, than transfer to kegs and lager in kegs. If you don't have the ability to cold crash first, I would suggest dedicating a keg or two to be lagering kegs, cut and inch, inch and a half off the dip tubes, this way when you transfer to serving kegs, you will leave all the cold crashed trub behind. You maybe lost a couple pints of beer, but it's worth it. Or you could use a floating dip tube instead, but will have to make sure you stop your transfer before the float hits the bottom and sucks up trub.

 

[BriBri Springs]

Thank you all! Wonderful answers and suggestions. I really appreciate it. I'll let you all know how it goes. Fermentation is cranking right now, so I have a couple weeks before I'll begin to lager.

 

[seilenos]

A top draw wll prevent this but can't be cleaned on a keg washer.

I clean my kegs with floating dip tubes on my Mark II Keg washer all the time.

 

[jtgoral]

I lager every beer at 52F. My kegerator has 4 CO2 lines and 3 taps. The fourth keg lagers until it gets connected to the tap and then until it gets empty. Usually 3 months.