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Author Topic: As I gather info.....  (Read 1186 times)

Offline Village Taphouse

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  • Ken from Chicago
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Re: As I gather info.....
« Reply #15 on: October 25, 2021, 11:52:06 am »
Space and refrigeration is definitely an issue.  You can easily make a one or two keg insulated box and use 2 liter ice bottles to keep the beer somewhat chilled or ferment in the box.  Look into spunding to allow for partial or full carbonation in the keg.  Consider pressure fermentation to get carbonated beer from the fermenter to the serving keg.  There is a lot of ingenuity out there at the homebrew level.  Good luck and do what you can to develop a "pipeline" that always has some beer in it.  I am like Ken, I have any number of folks who might stop by for an event (weekly NFL games, Friday night gatherings, that type of thing.  They know that if the garage door is open, they are welcome to stop by.  I close the garage door in the winter, but it is open most of the days and early evenings the rest of the year.  Most guys have a couple beers and head on their way; I don't always join them, but frequently have a beer and ask their input on the ones that are on tap.  It really is great to have several kegs in various points of finishing...but to do that, you need several kegs and several brews following on their heels.  Get some removable painters tape and keep the details on them, so you can remember what the "birth order" is and the details on OG, FG, brew date, rack date and anything else pertinent.

Cheers.
Yeah, this is very familiar.  I also just put a piece of paper on each keg with the style, the date, the yeast that was used and which pitch of that yeast.  I remember a few times when one keg or another went belly-up and people were not used to that KKKKSSSSHHHH! with a blast of yeast going into their glass.  I would say "Whoops!  Empty keg!" and they would say, "Do you have more?!?".  Yes, of course.  One thing I forgot to add was that you can ferment in a plastic tub with cold water and frozen water bottles if you're looking for that solution.  That might free up fridge space.  But the truth is that you can almost always find used fridges of various sizes on Craigslist as long as you have the room for them.  Cold storage is the key to having a running supply of beer.  The comment earlier about storing kegs cold to avoid oxidation is true.  You can leave a keg under pressure at room temp for a short time (or in a cool garage, etc) but at some point fermenting in a fridge to control fermentation temp and then storing in a cold fridge for long-term lagering or conditioning is going to be necessary if you want to be able to have a nonstop flow of beer that is always ready to go.  Many beers here sit cold in the fridge for 2-3 months before they hit the draft fridges.   
Ken from Chicago. 
A day without beer is like... just kidding, I have no idea.