Newbie kegging question

I have a stout and a saison ready to bottle.

However, I am in the process of building my keezer and will not be finished for at least 2 weeks.

Is it possible to keg the beer and let the two kegs sit with no carbonation?

Thank you in advance.

Brent

bnairuni87 said:

I have a stout and a saison ready to bottle.

However, I am in the process of building my keezer and will not be finished for at least 2 weeks.

Is it possible to keg the beer and let the two kegs sit with no carbonation?

Thank you in advance.

Brent

Click to expand...

Sure. Do you have a co2 tank to give the kegs a little shot of co2 when you seal them? It really doesn't matter if you don't, but I have a couple of kegs that just don't seal well without giving them a blast of co2 when I seat the lid. Also, I like to purge the oxygen out of them.

If you don't have a co2 tank yet, that's fine. I'd even consider priming the kegs with 2.5 ounces of corn sugar, and let them sit at room temperature. That way they'd be carbed up and ready to drink when your kegerator is finished.

I am by no means an expert but I think you'd want to seal the top of your kegs after to fill them by hitting them with a blast of co2 (a few of my kegs don't make a good seal until they are hit with pressure - of course the head space pressure will quickly drop once the co2 absorbs into the beer but the hope is the seal will remain once established even if the pressure drops). You could then leave them hooked up to co2 at room temp to carb (there's a chart floating around that shows the PSI to use at various temps to get your desired carb vol).

Alternately you could just throw some priming sugar in the kegs and let them carb naturally (though I think you'd still want to use the co2 initially to make sure the top is sealed). Either way your beer would be all carbed up for when your kegerator is ready to go.

[EDIT: looks like Yopper beat me to the punch - happy to see that my advice didn't contradict hers!]

If you can get the CO2 setup in order to at least purge them it would be best. They can sit flat and it is essentially a secondary or clarification time. But you want to make sure that after you transfer to the kegs they are purged of air.

Thank you all.

Now its keg cleaning time....