Managing a Burgeoning Pipeline

My biggest problem in the summer isn't that I don't have enough beer, it's that I don't have enough beer ready to drink when kegs kick at my big summer parties here in New Hampshire.

I have a 4-tap kegerator right now...usually, there are 2 IPAs on tap, a sour or saison and finally something low ABV like a Belgian Witt or Fruity Hefeweizen.

That's my "ready to drink now" pile..sometimes in there is a keg that's carbonating but I will usually carbonate kegs completely using my dual CO2 regulator and then put the carbonated kegs in the beer cellar until I am ready to drink them...then, it's a 24 hour wait until the beer keg is cold enough to actually pour.

Current Pipeline:
4 Kegs on Tap (all about half-full)
1 Keg ready to tap
4 - 5 Gallon batches in carboys, 2 are done, 2 are fermenting
2 - Batches being brewed this weekend both 5 gallons which will be ready in about 3 weeks.

So, I'm thinking about a couple of things to make life easier:
1. I just ordered 2 more kegs so now I'll have 3 in the pipeline of beers kegged and ready to serve
2. Get a chest freezer with temp control so I can keep carbonated kegs at serving temperature which will also help my IPAs remain drinkable much longer
3. Start bottling every batch that can be aged to free up kegerator space for pale ales and "drink fresh" beers.
4. Convert an additional fridge to a 4-tap kegerator and have 8 beers on tap. as well as extra space to cold crash kegs before transferring to kegs. With one fridge and no chest freezer, I have to take all 4 kegs out of my fridge to cold crash my completed beers overnight and then those kegs of beer are room temp so it's basically 48 hours without any beer.

I'd love to be able to serve all completed beers at once..maybe build my own keezer so I'll have room for more kegs to serve but also room in there for cold crashing beers?

Anyway, it's quite a dilemma. I love brewing beer and this all will get consumed at the monthly drinking event at my house, so i'm not worried about my brewing rate, I just need help figuring out how to keep these beers carbonated, fresh and drinkable easily.

I love the fact my keezer can hold five kegs. But, I only have four taps on it. The fifth keg is always ready and carbed. What's better than five beers on tap? Having four and having another in the wings when one blows. Not saying it will work for you. But works for me.

Hammy71 said:

I love the fact my keezer can hold five kegs. But, I only have four taps on it. The fifth keg is always ready and carbed. What's better than five beers on tap? Having four and having another in the wings when one blows. Not saying it will work for you. But works for me.

Click to expand...

that's what I'm thinking. Build out a keeper..I might add some taps to it but it's not really necessary...having 4 beers on tap is already good enough and, if one kicks, I'll just replace it with a cold carbonated keg from the keezer...and, I can adjust the temp both for fermenting lagers and for cold crashing huge hoppy IPAs. I think it's a win-win.

Make a simple spreadsheet in Excel to keep track of whats in the kegs and whats in fermenters.

Then do some simple math to manage expected run out dates by consumption level. I know I posted this before but here goes...

Note date put on tap and how much is in keg.
Weekly check amount left in keg with a quick guesstimation (you can usually feel the "cold line" on the outside of he keg)
Take amount consumed and divide by number of days since the last updated inventory.
Now divide the amount remaining by the number you got from the previous step and that is how many days are left at current consumption rate.

So 5gal keg on tap 4/10
First check on 4/16 says 3gals remain
2gallons in 6 days equals .333 per day
3gals remaining divided by .333 equals 9days remaining if I stay drunk...I better brew quickly.

Easy peasy and I use it all the time to manage bbls of beer at work with pretty good accuracy.

Wow. Yeah, that sounds great and sounds similar to what a lot of local breweries do with kegs to make sure they're not brewing too little or too much.

I finally bought tags that hang from growlers and kegs so I can label things..the old method of knowing what was in a keg was just pulling the pressure release valve for a second and smelling to figure out what was in there.

I have about 20 kegs and my Kezzer only serves two at a time...

I have two methods for one for everyday and one for parties.

The everyday method is just toss two more Keggs in the keezer (yes I have the room) and use "Cobra-Head" taps hanging out the side... that tubing is rigid so it does not shut it off and if it did I would add a spacer... I can serve four this way.

For parties I just us ice and a trash can for the additional kegs... Saves room in the house.


SO why did I only put a double tap on my Kezzer build??? Well because that is what parts I had in the corner and I wnated to use the,

I have a few of those cobra heads but my regulator only has 5 CO2 cables so while I have capacity for one more keg, the fridge only holds 4 cornys.

I think this is going to come down to a chest freezer w/ temp control to serve two purposes. I can control fermentation temps in there and, a day or 2 before a party, I can put any carbonated kegs and cool them down and add 4 taps to it so fermentation chamber as well as a second kegerator.

Check out the link in my sig for some bigger keezer builds, perhaps?