I’m now on my 3rd gallon of kegged beer in the mini fridge. I’ve been doing good with a descent sunday schedule of transferring from secondary into the keg, primary into secondary, then brewing another 1 gallon batch for the primary. I’d like to extend the process into multiple kegs to get some more age into my beers as they seem to get better as i get to the last pint. I’ve read through quite a few pages in this section and haven’t found much use of 1 gallon kegs. My question is. Could I force carb a keg then replace the spout cap with a solid cap and have it stay viably carbonated? Or would it be like filling a growler and capping it at that point? I can obviously force carbonate it again after aging. I may have just negated my question of will it stay carbonated with realizing I can just carbonate it again. I’ll gladly take some opinions anyway.
Great question, I don’t have any answers but will be watching this as I want to do the same, in a way, with 5 gallon kegs. I would like to try and have on on deck, but I don’t have any way to keep it at anything other than room temp right now. Good luck, I am sure you will get some great info here. These guys are great. RR
From what I’ve read on here pertaining to corny kegs. You can pressurize with 30 psi and store. Similar to bottling I suppose. Then periodically check pressure and top up while being stored at room temp. I can get a 2 post cap for my 1 gallon gets at $40. On top of the $38 cost of the keg that gets me up to used 5 gallon. And new 1.5 gallon keg prices. Which is beyond my budget.
Thanks, I will look a little farther into it. If I did it, the stored Keg probably would not be stored for more than 2 or 3 weeks. But, for now, all I have is a mini fridge converstion that won’t fit more than one. RR
Update: I had taken pressure off a 1 gallon keg about 1/3 full. Or 2/3 empty. Depends on how ya look at it. I put the solid cap on it and left it in the fridge for 3 days. Just poured a glass out of it. There was a bit of pressure release when opened as expected. Same carbonation level as 3 days ago and no detectable taste difference. I see myself getting 2 or 3 more $38 1 gallon kegs next month to start storing carbed batches in the fridge and checking for oxidation.
Storing beer with that kind of had space (1/3 to 2/3) will oxidize pretty quickly. Maybe consider stainless growlers? At least that way you will fill beer to the top. Just a thought.
Is this a stainless ball-lock corny keg? If so, just carb and remove the fittings (gas-in, liquid out) and it can set. No oxidation beside whatever oxygen is already in the keg (CO2 purge before filling will help greatly). No reason to expect that oxygen will get into it unless you have leak somewhere, in which case the beer will get flat and oxidized; but under normal circumstances it won’t.
