Can the beer be saved (from keg)?

[detlion1643]

My buddy had a keg of Yuengling at a get together. Turns out that a lot of people didn't show, and we ended up taking the keg back to my place. Since he had to turn the keg back into the place he got it from he didn't want to waste/lose all that beer he paid for (the place wouldn't reimburse).

So what we decided to do was bottle what we could. We transferred 5 gallons from the keg to my bottling bucket then to bottles. I did not recarb this up and the keg wasn't hooked up to CO2 either. I fear this will go flat very fast.

However, we then got another 5 gallons out of the keg and I could only bottle up 1 gallon of that before I ran out of bottles.

The last 4 gallons I put in a carboy and airlocked.

Here is where my question finally comes up... Is it possible to have this beer drinkable later down the line? I think I might have to add sugar and yeast and re-ferment it up a little to get some CO2 back into it.

Is the only thing that happens is the beer goes flat? I could even dump all the bottles back in and re-ferment those as well.

Is this all a waste of time?

 

[CadillacAndy]

Define "drinkable". Was it connected to a regular keg hand pump and picnic tap?

My guess would be that the beer is going to be terribly oxidized and will probably very quickly start to develop acetaldehyde. If it was me I'd personally have drank as much as possible, tossed some more in growlers in the fridge and cut my losses.

You technically could add priming sugar and yeast to try to bottle carb it, but the huge amount of oxygen exposure is going to be the biggest enemy.

 

[detlion1643]

Was it connected to a regular keg hand pump and picnic tap?

Yes.

I'd personally have drank as much as possible

That was my plan. In fact there were 3 heavy drinkers and everyone else was 1 or 2 beers all day.

the huge amount of oxygen exposure is going to be the biggest enemy.

I feared that might be a problem. Everything already bottled was given away with instructions to drink it as soon as possible.

 

[Bobby_M]

Unfortunately it's gone. The best bet is to invest in a CO2 tank and regulator and never push beer with air again. Then the keg lasts for as long as you want. I've never heard of a requirement to return a keg so quickly. What about people who have kegerators and keep the keg for 3 months?

 

[detlion1643]

It wasn't from a distributor, it was from a club my buddies dad is a member of which is where they had this get together. They didn't even originally want us to take the keg.

Truthfully speaking I am not worried at all about it, my buddy is since he paid for it.

Thanks for the advice!