warm kegging?

[philbrasil]

Hello, I just lagered a pilsner for 2 months and tomorrow I am going to brew again. 10 bottles and the rest goes to a keg.

The problem is, I will be out of room on the fridge for this keg, since I will have two 5 gallon carboys in there fermenting.

Can I keg and leave at room temperature? What effect will this have on my beer? Also, should I put some priming sugar or not?

[Kaiser]

It's not ideal for the beer, but it should be fine if you take the beer off the yeast. You can also force carbonate at room temp. Just adjust the pressure accordingly.

How warm is room temp for you?

Kai

[philbrasil]

Room temperature for me would be something around....74-80..

About force carbonation....I heard discussions about people who do only artificial CO2, and people who mix CO2 and a little bit of priming sugar too. Will I be ok with only artificial CO2? What pressure should I put for that temperature? And how long will I have to wait till I drink the beer? Will the gas dissolve in 1 day maybe? 2? 7?

[Kaiser]

Here is a link to a table for force carbonation: http://www.bossbeer.org/tips/carbonation_imp.htm

If you don't acellerate the carbonation by shaking or overpressure, the latter may cause overcabonation, it should take about a week for the beer to carbonate properly. But due to the high pressure and temp the beer will foam a lot if you plan to dispense it at room temp.

Kai

[philbrasil]

there wasa another problem: I had a 5.5 gallon keg, but only 2 gallons of beer. So I transfered it to the keg....

My question is: There is a lot of dead space (of air) in this keg. Is this sufficient for an oxidation of the beer and I have to purge that keg with CO2 before putting pressure on it? Or will I be fine just to put pressure shut that keg with CO2 ( I heard a lot of gas going to that keg)

[Thirsty Boy]

I'm pretty sure you should be purging all the air out with CO2 before you even fill it.

If you pressure it up with the air in it, you will be forcing all the gasses to dissolve in the beer. CO2, Nitrogen AND unfortunately the oxygen as well.

I say purge it.

[Kaiser]

Yes, the keg need to be purged with CO2. But I'm not sure how completely you can actually purge the air out of a keg w/o filling it with deaerated water and pushing out the water with CO2. I'm saying this b/c I recently oxidized a beer that I had to rack from Keg to Keg a few times and I always purged the Keg. Especially the Star-San bubbles must have gotten into the way of purging it completely.

Thirsty,
When you increase the CO2 pressure, you are not increasing the O2 pressure. This means no matter wat the CO2 pressure in a keg is, the O2 will remain at the same partial pressure and the diffusion rate of the O2 into the beer doesn't change.

Kai

[philbrasil]

how does one purge CO2 in the keg?

do you pressure shut and release CO2 just like as if there was beer in the keg?

Or you purge CO2 with the valve opened?