novice kegging questions

[billynoah]

i recently purchased the equipment needed to embark on the road to kegging & force carbonating my cyder and i have a couple questions i'm hoping some of you more experienced than i can help me on:

a) after cyder has been force carbonated can it be stored and/or aged indefinitely as in the carboy? another brewer told me that it would become oxidized if stored too long after carbonating - but this makes no sense to me since it is only CO2 and no oxygen present...

b) after force carbonating is it ok for the cyder to be stored at room temperature?

c) can cyder be bottled after force carbonating and will it keep it's carbonation through the bottling process?

any other help or suggestions about long term storage before or after kegging would be appreciated. up until now i just ferment it, leave it in the carboy indefinitely (usually about 6 months to a year) and then bottle & drink when needed. this seems to work fine and i've left some batches for over a year which only seems to improve to end product. basically i'm trying to intergrate this store & drink when needed idea into the kegging system but i'm not sure how to go about it... i like the carbonated cyder but i don't want to necessarily go and carbonate it on the fly. also, i enjoy cyder at room temperature so that's why i am asking about serving and storing at room temperature after carbonating.

thanks!

-billy

 

[TipsyDragon]

a) as long as you completely purged the head space and there are no leaks in the keg it wont oxidize.

b) the CO2 cylinder? yes. the keg? yes

c) yes you can bottle after carbonation. not sure how but others will be able to tell you.

 

[billynoah]

a) so does anyone have any input about the effect of storing a carbonated batch? does this change the aging process in some way?

b) if i carbonate, then allow it to warm up, can i serve it at room temp or do i need to chill it again before serving? i rather enjoy warm cyder so hope that serving it warm & cabonated won't pose any problems.

c) if i bottle it after carbonating will it retain the forced co2 in old grolsch bottles? does anyone know any trick to this...?

thanks!

 

[steinsato]

I bottle after carbonation all the time but I spent the $100 on a Blichman beer gun. I don't know how to do it properly otherwise.

 

[billynoah]

so what happens if you without the beer gun? will it keep any of the carbonation? could i possibly compensate by slightly overcarbonating before bottling?

 

[jezter6]

If you don't use the beer gun, at least make sure to try the Biermuncher Bottle Filler (BMBF). I think it's under the kegging section in a stick "We don't need no stinking beer gun".

I've used be BMBF at home to bottle growlers and such to take to parties, and in general they've lasted a week or two without any issues.

You may get a better response to this question directly in the kegging forum as there are a lot more people that use the BMBF method over in the "beer" areas that might not check these threads in the cider forum.

Of course, reading through the thread I mentioned and searching around for BMBF - you might find someone who already answered this question before.