Taking my keg on vacation... how?

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NickThoR

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I am not 100 percent sure how to travel with my keg ( i have only kegged one batch so far and it stayed in my fridge the whole time). Next friday we're going on vacation and we will have a cabin with a full kitchen/fridge. I use a 20lb tank so id rather not lug that, and i do have a small handheld charger My thoughts would be to -

- carb keg as usual
- disconnect and drive to cabin ( 5 hours )
- remove some shelves and put it in the fridge
- wait
- drink and be merry using keg charger

How long should i wait? Id like to drink ASAP once we get there. Could I purge all the co2 and just use the charger? (if it means anything, we will probably finish it off that same night we get there or the next)
 
Pack extra cartridges. Don't want to run out of gas. Homer bucket and ice will save fridge space. Try to let Keg settle and don't get too trigger happy with release valve. Better to have a few foamy pours than release too much CO2 out of suspension. Cartridge is there to push, not recarbonate.
 
I believe as the keg warms up C02 will leave the beer and go into the head space in the keg so if you tapped it right when you got there it would come gushing out but not be well carbonated. As it cools back down it should equalize back to the way it is in your keggerator now. Also the 5 hours worth of shaking will re suspend any trub that settled out at the bottom of the keg and will make your beer cloudy until it settles back out. I would try to keep the keg on ice while travelling to at least avoid the C02 issue.

Using the charger will be fine to push the beer out but I would imagine over time the carbonation levels would change, then again if your finishing it that quickly I'm sure it won't make much of a difference.

You could try over carbing the keg now and purging the headspace when you get there so that even though the beer has lost some carbonation it will have dropped to about the carb level you intended. I have no idea how much you should over carbonate it but I'm sure there are formulas around somewhere that could help.
 
This is a GREAT post....

My wife and I bought a cabin several years ago. I bottled my beer for several years until I just plain decided that bottling was just the ****tiezzd thing to do, and started kegging. I'm faced with the same delima.

What I say to you is this....

Suck it up and buy a cabin for yourself. Then.... buy a mini fridge and convert it into a kegerator. Take 2 kegs with you to the cabin and put them into the kegerator.

Short of that.... get to the city that the cabin is located in, and buy some beer at the local store. Then take the beer that you've bought at the local store to the cabin that you're renting and place it in the fridge in the cabin that you've rented. When you want a beer, go to the fridge in the cabin that you've rented and open the door. Take a bottle of beer out of the fridge, pop the cap, and drink the beer that you bought in the city where the cabin that you rented is located and ... at this point you have 2 options... Either pour it into a glass then drink it, or... don't pour it into a glass, but drink it straight out of the bottle.

Seriously... I hate not having home brewed beer when I go up to the cabin, and I hate the fact that my home brew is here while I'm up at the cabin. It's quite a delima.

We Americans... we have so many problems.
 
You could also look into getting a 20 Oz paintball tank and hook your reg to it with an adapter. Just a thought
 
So theres no easy way for transporting a keg? Or estimate of how long it takes for it to settle back into the beer so we can drink it?
 
This is precisely the reason I built a jockey box all those years ago. And got a 2.5 pound cylinder. Makes travelling fairly easy. I just need to make sure I have a bag of ice at the place the drinking will occur ;)
 
NickThoR said:
So theres no easy way for transporting a keg? Or estimate of how long it takes for it to settle back into the beer so we can drink it?
Click to expand...

Oh my gosh, transporting a keg is a piece of keg. I brought three kegs to S. Texas again this winter. I was drinking out of one of the kegs within two hours of arrival.

One thing to keep in mind is that if there is any sediment in your keg, you'll resuspend it all during the drive. If you have an extra keg, it really helps to jump the beer to a new keg. It's important to NOT MOVE the original keg once it's carbed up and clear. Then simply make a "jumper cable" with a black QD/ 6' beer line/black QD.

Sanitize the new keg, and hook up one of the black QDs to the "out" of that keg. Release some of the gas out of the original keg, and reset the psi on the regulator to 2-3 psi. Put the other black QD on that keg, and then pull the pressure relief valve on the new keg about every 30 seconds. Boom- you have a fresh keg of sediment-free beer to take wherever you want. Give it a big blast of c02 to seat the lid and fill the headspace once the transfer is done, and you're all set to take the keg to anywhere in the universe.

When you get to your destination, cool the keg. I take picnic taps and 10' of line (to help reduce foaming). Hook it up and pour. The first glass may be foamy, but once the keg is nice and cold that will stop. Only use the keg charger when the beer stops flowing. It should take about 3-5 cartridges to dispense a whole keg.

Easy as can be, and I do it all the time.
 
Well, I only have the one lonely keg... So I guess ill just try to get as little sediment in the leg as i can when i rack to it. Slightly overcarb, get it super cold, try to keep it cool on the drive, let it settle and cool for an hour or so in the fridge when we get there, then get to drinkin'.
 
I've transported a lot of kegs, (okay like 3 different times). I like to wait overnight if at all possible. I did one at about 4 or 5 hours. More because of the timing of the event, rather than starting drinking.

I didn't want to mess around with the jumper keg, but sit it where you want to serve it. You'll have to waste a bit of beer to get the sediment out. But once you do so, you're good to go.

I brought my 5 lb cylinder which was kinda pain. my LHBS sells the little cartridge one that I almost bought.
 
Maybe i can hold everyone off the keg till night 2..... i dont know how well that will work though lol
 
Might also consider your state laws as well as any other states involved. Consumption and transportation of homebrew may have specific rules. At least you'll know how well to hide it in the vehicle.
 
I transport the keg upright in a 5 gal pail draped in ice. Tight fit with ice...wish I had a wider pail. Melt ice with cold hose water to 1/3 full. Repack with ice.

Arrival: unpack first and place in final serving destination. Be gentle moving it. Repack with ice if not refrigerated. Wait 1/2 hour or so while you unpack the rest of the car. Use release valve to establish 1st good pour. Push with cartridge until keg empty. Repack with ice for overnight storage and whenever needed.
 
Have any empty growlers? You mentioned that you would probably finish it quickly. I would just fill growlers and put them into a cooler. I have at least 8 growlers in my basement though.
 
no growlers, i have a pretty bare bones equipment setup. one brewpot, one keg, a bag for BIAB, a carboy, and thats about it..... I have a few swing top bottles, but not not enough for the whole batch.
 
Not sure how long you plan to be there, but next time I go on vacation I'm taking one of these......

NRS

Newcastle Keg.jpg
 
If you don't want to mess around with jumping kegs, you could do what I do and draw off a couple of glasses, before you move the keg, until it runs clear. Then transport the keg, any remaining re-suspended trub will be minimal upon arrival. Also plus one to a bucket with ice in it to keep the keg cool, I even do this in conjunction with my jockey box.
 
There are a couple of other options that I've used. I got the portable keggerator build from homebrewtalk. Basically, I bought an igloo($50), cut a hole in the top to fit a keg and bought a 20oz paintball tank ($12) and a regulator adaptor ($20) and take that on trips. Just fill it up with ice and you're set. I try to transport the keg right side up and let it sit with ice for about an hour. The link is below:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/portable-igloo-cooler-kegerator-172047/index2.html

2nd option that I've used is just to rent a jockey box. If you have the cash, buy one and you'll get plenty of uses from it.
 
I had brewed two batches for a picnic, an APA and a blonde ale. The kegs sat in my keezer for three weeks carbonating up, where I'd pull a glass from each every few days to check on their progress, so there wasn't much sediment left in the kegs.

I then transported the two kegs 100 miles for an outdoor turkey barbecue. Both kegs were kept upright, set into a cooler with ice, strapped down tightly to the floor, and wrapped in moving blankets to keep them cold.

When we arrived, I just carefully moved them to the picnic area, hooked up a CO2 tank, attached the picnic taps, covered them in the moving blankets, and began pouring. Lots of compliments, and no complaints.
 
That's awesome to hear! We are doing the same this spring. Did you use a 5lbs co2 or the cartridges?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I didn't (and still don't) have the CO2 cartridge system because I've heard they break, so I used my 20 pound CO2 tank.
 
Just fill a few growlers and bring those instead. If you're drinking them all within the first night or two, you won't need to worry about carbonation or oxidation or heck - even sanitization. They won't be around long enough for anything truly bad to take hold.
A full keg would take, what, about 10 growlers? Rather than reconfiguring the fridge, bringing CO2, futzing with cords, drinking cloudy beer, worrying about leaks, keeping a huge keg cold, and so on and so on.
 
When going on vacation, I have usually just filled some growlers from the keg and lived with that. But I have 2.5 gallon keg and am thinking about filling that from a 5 gallon keg along the lines Yooper suggested and take that with me to the beach for spring break. I think the 2.5 g is small enough to sit on a regular fridge shelf without being too obnoxious to the other contents. I also a have 2.5 lb CO2 tank that I could haul along as well.
 
gbarron said:
When going on vacation, I have usually just filled some growlers from the keg and lived with that. But I have 2.5 gallon keg and am thinking about filling that from a 5 gallon keg along the lines Yooper suggested and take that with me to the beach for spring break. I think the 2.5 g is small enough to sit on a regular fridge shelf without being too obnoxious to the other contents. I also a have 2.5 lb CO2 tank that I could haul along as well.
Click to expand...


How did it go with filling and taking the 2.5 on vacation @gbarron? We just got two 2.5's and were thinking the something.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I know its not a benefit to you now but I use 2 1/2 gallon kegs and a 5 gallon cooler with a mini regulator and paint ball co2 carts..yes that fits in a 5 gallon cooler with some ice and. I drilled holes through the top and the lines go in and out from the out side mini regulator hangs on the handles..

547527_10201055941467843_795817929_n.jpg
 
I used the 60 qt igloo cooler, cut a hole in the lid with a jigsaw. The lid wasn't insulated so I spray foamed it. Also purchased a replacement lid so I could tote my 3 gallon ones around with no hole and lid closed. These are pin lock kegs btw.

20140630_142808.jpg
 

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