Storing beer in kegs

[sorefingers23]

I have all my car boys full of beer and want to store them in kegs but my taps are all being used, can I just put my beer in the kegs until I have an empty tap and then connect them to the co2, or should I give it a shot of gas first ?

 

[day_trippr]

Once it's sealed, a keg is a big bottle, so sure, you can load them up and park them until you're ready to carb them up.

But, you could carb them while they're parked and thus shorten your pipeline by a couple of weeks.

Either way, after filling the keg(s) you can give them a shot of CO2 at a high pressure to seat the lid o-ring (though that pressure will drop to near zero once that small volume of CO2 in the head space dissolves into the beer)...

Cheers!

 

[sorefingers23]

Do I need to purge the head space or anything like that ?

 

[day_trippr]

Definitely - regardless of what you're going to do with a keg, you should always flush the head space out with CO2...

Cheers!

 

[pvpeacock]

You should always purge the head-space with CO2 after you fill or open a keg. As long as the keg is not leaking, you can store your un-carbonated beer in it for a very long time. I stored/aged an un-carbonated coffee stout for over a year in a keg without any problem. However, if you want to get a jump start on carbonating it while you wait, just add priming sugar to the keg when you fill it, purge with CO2 and it will naturally carbonate. You can then adjust the carbonation level when you put it in the kegerator/keezer and put it on gas.