Keg travel

[Brian66]

I brew small batches 2 1/2 - 3 gallons. I recently brewed a citra pale ale that yielded 2 gallons and was fairly cloudy. Once kegged and carbonated it tasted good and had a little haze to it. I only had a couple pints and saved the rest for a Father's day BBQ - so it was in the chest freezer for 2 more weeks at 38 degrees F. On BBQ day I put the keg in a cooler, hooked up a mini regulator with a 16g cartridge. I carried the cooler to a neighbors house two houses away. There was tons of foam and whatever sediment that was at the bottom of the keg mixed in and never settled the whole day. In fact it took 2-3 days for it to settle.

Is there a better way to move a keg to avoid this type of issue or was it just the case that this particular batch had a lot of sediment? I'll be traveling again soon with the keg and this time it will be a few hours drive.

 

[jrgtr42]

Probably a little of both.
Guessing there was a lot of sediment / trub that made it into the keg (is this a 2.5 gal keg or a full size?)
Also, moving it around will get everything stirred around. Especially if it's not full up.
I would probably say to get it to where you need it to be as early as possible and as cold as you reasonably can. And don't disturb it once it's in place.
Presuming it's the same keg and beer, there's not much more you can do. Next time do your best to get as little excess 'stuff' in there as possible.

 

[pvpeacock]

I took 4 five-gallon kegs to my son's fraternity father-son weekend. After a 5 hour drive, I headed straight for the party venue and put the kegs on ice in tubs and let them sit for about 6-7 hours before hooking them up to a jockey box. No foaming problems and no sediment problems most likely because all of the kegs had floating dip tubes which only draw beer from the top, not the bottom. I credit the floating dip tubes with allowing clear beer to flow while the sediment lower down continued to settle.

P.S. there's nothing like being the dad who made the beer for the party!

 

[Brian66]

It's a 2.5 gallon keg. The next keg I travel with will be a pilsner so the plan would be to have no sediment at all. Thanks!

 

[S-Met]

i have a slimline torpedo 2.5g that fits perfectly into a 5gal orange igloo cooler. Chill the keg, drop a little ice in the bottom of the cooler, then keg and cover with ice. Kept cool for 3 days last camp trip. Picnic tap and touch up with co2 every once in a while. I don't use it enough or I'd consider one of those mini co2 reg.

 

[gnef]

There will always be some settling in the keg, and if you move the keg, you will disturb that layer, and it will stir back into solution.

The best way around this (in my opinion), is to wait for it to settle, then add in some gelatin to clear it up even more, and then once the gelatin has done its work, transfer only clear beer to a new keg, and make sure to stop before you pick up any sediment.

Once you do that, you can move it around as much as you want, and the beer will remain clear.

I honestly don't do this very often, as the vast majority of the time, once a keg goes into the walk-in cooler, I don't move it until it is empty. If I ever need to move the keg or serve off-site with one of my jockey boxes, then I'll do the gelatin and transfer before I need to move the keg.

 

[AzOr]

If possible let keg settle out in your keezer then before your trip do a pressure transfer to another keg. That’s assuming you have a spare keg. I’ve done this several times when transporting kegs to lhbs when they were having a canning party.

 

[SUNus]

One hack is to let the keg settle upright for a day or two before moving it. Also, chilling it well can help sediment settle, reducing foam during transit. Using a jumper line or a longer hose when serving can avoid disturbing settled sediment. Sometimes it’s the batch itself; some brews just have more sediment. For your next trip, a few hours’ drive, keeping it cold and letting it settle beforehand might do the trick!