Kegging Beer for Micro Brewery

[barnyardbrewer]

Hi, I'm working my way to start a microbrewery. Let's say I have 4 -6 craft beers on tap that I force carbonate, and I am now serving. P.S the microbrewery is going to be in a restaurant. I need to make backup kegs of beer for when the ones on tap run out. My question is how do I carbonate the back up kegs? Can someone please answer this for me. Do I set up another CO2 manifold and force carbonate it, and put it in a cooler? How do the commercial companies do it? I know the beer has to be carbonated while they transporting it.

 

[day_trippr]

You're clearly going to need some way to carbonate beer before it's needed.
Whether you use a separate CO2 system or just add on to your dispensing system is a question you'll need to resolve.

You can carbonate warm beer, it just requires higher pressure (refer to our favorite carbonation table).
That said, it takes awhile to chill a keg down to dispensing temperature which might be an issue given your intentions.

fwiw, I have a fridge dedicated to cold-conditioning/carbonating kegs so they're ready immediately when one of the kegs in my keezer goes empty.
It has it's own four-keg gas system with a five pound bottle...

Cheers!

 

[zman]

you can also naturally carb the kegs like it was one big bottle. I had to do it when I only had a 2 tap kegerator and had to make 8 kegs for a friends wedding. You will need to buy or build a pressure gage.

 

[day_trippr]

"Spunding valve"

Cheers!

 

[iijakii]

Big boys use pressure rated brite tanks and carbonate in there before racking to kegs. If you aren't doing that then yeah, another CO2 manifold setup will be the way to go.

 

[madscientist451]

Never got my nano brewery off the ground, but I've thought about this issue. Your force carbing setup should be separate from your serving setup. Not that big of a deal really. Using corny kegs? Once you get going good and make some money you can get dedicated brite tanks and keg and serve from those.

 

[passedpawn]

[thread moved to kegging]

 

[barnyardbrewer]

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it