Serving beer outside and how I should get prepared.

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Stormin Norman
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Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:35 pm
Location: Allen
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Serving beer outside and how I should get prepared.

Post by Stormin Norman »

Hey guys

I'm going to be serving some of my homebrew for a Halloween party later in the month and I'm not exactly sure what to look out for as this will be my first time serving something not in a kegerator. I'm hoping one of you might point out a potential issue I might run into with my current plan.

The product:
Four of the beers are in 3 gal corny kegs:
----1) Wit, 2) Alt, 3) IPA, 4)Saison
Two of them are in 5 gal corny kegs:
----1) PaleAle, 2)Hard Cider
I suspect we will have some commercial beer too:
----1) Shiner, 2) who cares

The setup:
I'm installing 6 tap handles into a Halloween prop my buddy built (below). I was going to buy some 7 gal plastic buckets and put a keg in each and fill with ice. The beer line will be 10 foot long and rise up about 4 foot (3.5" shanks). I planed to also insulate the beer lines with some pipe insulation. I have a dual regulator and several gas line distributors in case the commercial beer requires different pressure.
Image

The concerns I have:
Carbonation-- I normally keg my beer and bleed out the fresh air with co2 and set it aside (room temperature 78) till i'm ready to drink it. Up until now I've done the crank it up to 30psi and shake the keg method of force carbonation when it was time to put it in the kegerator. I don't think that will work for me since I have 6 different kegs to do. Plus I don't want to be troubleshooting beer foam all night. So my biggest concern is getting this right. I'm looking for suggestions here.
If doing it cold seems like the best option, I do have a small check freezer i use for fermentation I can get 3 kegs in. I can also put 2 in my kegerator. If push comes to shove I can even clean out some space in the 2nd fridge I have in the Garage to put a few kegs. I have 2 C02 tanks with several distribution blocks. I was thinking I'd carbonate each beer at 40 degrees --> 2.5 C02 Volume --> 12.3 psi for 3 days. But I really am not sure about it.

Temperature rising as the evening progresses -- As the evening progresses i'm worried about the beer warming up and starting to foam. I'm not exactly sure what to do about this if anything.

C0s levels for different styles -- I dunno if I really care, I was going to try and use the same co2 level for all the beer. I just wanted to mention this incase someone wants to point out a reason I need to worry about it.

Stuff I haven't thought of: -- Thoughts?

Thanks guys!
- Chris Norman
- www.StorminNorman.me
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BigWally
Posts: 327
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 7:46 pm
Location: Carrollton

Re: Serving beer outside and how I should get prepared.

Post by BigWally »

Keep your kegs in ice. Keeping the beer cold will help with the foaming. Using the foam insulation on the lines will help too. If your beers are carbonated to the same volumes, or close, then you should be able to push them at the same pressure.

Here's a link I found for a chart to tell you what pressure to push your beer: http://www.draft-beer-made-easy.com/car ... chart.html You may want to search around for some more information.
Maybe the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
Stormin Norman
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:35 pm
Location: Allen
Contact:

Re: Serving beer outside and how I should get prepared.

Post by Stormin Norman »

Thanks for the reply.

I got some helpful suggestions from HBT as well.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/serving ... me-494576/

I charged them all up (4 kegs) and equalized them a week ago+. I have them in my freezer @ 40 degrees @ 11psi. They will be there a little over 2 weeks before I serve them so I feel more confident about this. I've actually been drinking beer off one. :-)

I ended up buying some 7 gallon buckets from ULINE to ice them down in. They are the perfect size for this. I was also going to swing my Lowe's one day this week and pick up the pipe insulation.
- Chris Norman
- www.StorminNorman.me
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