Carbonating Kegs outside

MikeMelga · Apr 15, 2024

Hi everyone.

I am very new to this brewing world. I have an outdoor kitchen where I currently use a Cornelius Maxi 110 shelf cooler with commercial beer.
Been using it for 5 years with no problems.
But now...I started my home brew saga... and I want to keg my beer and use it with the shelf cooler. I have no problems in adding extra gas lines for the home brew kegs and rearranging my setup.

However, I have two questions:

1 - My beer instalation is outdoors. Temperatures here in summer can go from 20ºC to 30ºC with a 5 or even 10º drop at night. Will I be able to carbonate my kegs in these conditions?

2 - The Maxi 110 is a single line product. I want to use more than one keg at the same time. I was thinking of using John Guest valves and manually select which keg I want to use. Apart from the first pint waste, are there any other inconvenients to this solution?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Mike

Rodcx500z · Apr 15, 2024

Carbonating at those temps will take a lot longer and use more gas hence the reason we use a fridge known as a kegerator, i carbonate my beers at 5c at 10-20 psi depending on what beer it is. the second part of your question i have no clue, i know what it is but have never used one, someone on here will know your answer and will no doubt be along shortly

MashBag · Apr 15, 2024

1. What Rod said.

2. You can get a John Guest 'Y' with 2 valves fit this immediately before the chiller, minimising the waste. Better still drink one keg at a time and don't be greedy

Also beer & wine etc don't like temp fluctuations so I would consider insulation regardless of Carbonation.

hoppyscotty · Apr 15, 2024

Whilst in theory carbonation is just a simple case of applying head pressure corresponding to beer temperature, I'm not sure all beer styles will appreciate sitting at elevated temperatures for any length of time. I've definitely heard it before and in the early days of Brewdog when they were exporting a container of Punk over to the States and the refrigeration failed so the beer was sat at warm temperatures for most of the crossing the beer was spoiled at the end of the journey and the entire consignment was dumped.