Kegging warm

[Chris]

My fridge is dead- and with my Oktoberfest this Saturday!

I need to keg and carb up a best bitter without the ability to cool it down. Is there anything that I need to know?

I am aiming at about 1.5 volumes at about 22*C, which I think means I need ~13.5psi.

That said, do I need to adjust anything when I cool down the keg (using an icebath)?

[rwh]

http://sdcollins.home.mindspring.com/Fo ... ation.html

The excel spreadsheet linked to in that article seems to suggest that you need about 16PSI to force carb to 1.5 volumes of CO2.

[drsmurto]

Link

Trick is that as you cool it down more CO2 will dissolve so if you aim for slightly less than the desired pressure you should be OK.

Note - the above link is to a table in PSI and degF. Yanks.....

[Chris]

Ok, so the info given for higher temperature kegging assumes that you will also drink the beer at that temperature? ie. if you keg at 20*C, you serve at 20*C.

So does anyone know the adjustment required, or is it trial and error with the release valve?

[Chris]

And thanks for those links too.

The one I used was: http://hbd.org/recipator/

[rwh]

So if you dissolve 1.5 volumes of CO2 in your beer at 22°C, when you chill it you will have 1.5 volumes still in solution (actually, slightly more, as some more of the CO2 in the headspace will dissolve, but probably not enough to worry about).

Once it's cold, the pressure of CO2 will be lower, but there will be the same amount dissolved. So once you chill, you will need to dispense at a lower pressure, say at 4°C, you will need to dispense at 2psi for the whole thing to be in balance (according to that spreadsheet).

[Chris]

I think I'm with you now.

I was worried about the extra CO2 dissolving into the beer when chilled. I gather that when that happens, it reduces the overall pressure on the gas/liquid interface- especially considering a much lower serving pressure of ~2psi; and hence I won't get jugs full of icecream.

Thanks.

[rwh]

Correct. Just remember to disconnect your gas bottle while you're chilling, then purge your headspace, reconnect at the lower pressure and you should be away.

P.S. 1.5 volumes is pretty low. Is it a stout or real ale?

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Metho ... uide.shtml

[Chris]

I'm going for a 'real ale style' of carbonation. It's just a k&k special bitter for a bbq with non-hb drinkers.

Thanks for the info. This post now has a whole lot of very good kegging links on it