Kegging question (re-carbonating beer)

I don't see why not. I recarb beer all the time - I often buy beer and add my own flavor infusions to it (coffee or whatever) and this flattens the beer. Subsequently, I recarb the beer before drinking it.

 

The beer was most likely exposed to O2 (and microbes) when the growlers were filled. You'll be oxidizing the beer further when you transfer to the keg. I wouldn't recommend Growler Fills for long term storage.

 

You could, but you'll at some point have the beer getting a bit of oxygen. Alot of work would need to be involved.
The growlers would need to be filled correctly, then you'd need to siphon them into a purged keg, purge your lines and siphon with co2, and empty each growler. Then purge the keg.

If it's a hoppy style, I wouldn't bother with sitting on it anyways.

A big beer with minimal hop contribution, you could try it out.

Chances are though.. you are probably wasting time and money... and beer. Drink it!

 

I agree, don't see an issue with that. My only concern is any splashing when you pour the growlers into the keg could cause some oxidation. Purge the keg with C02 first and siphon from the growler to keg and it should not be much of an issue.

Not sure how much this costs, but this would work too...http://www.growlersaver.com/

 

That doesn't really seem like that much work. Certainly it's less work than brewing a batch of beer. Getting properly filled growlers could be the sticky wicket, but I think you could probably re-keg 2 or 3 gallons of just about any beer and have it be good for a couple of weeks at least. It wouldn't be any more ideal than saving the beer in the growlers, but it would eliminate the need to put down 32 (or 64) ounces in a sitting.

 

I hate websites that won't explain things to me in print. Does this add pressure and pump beer out of your growler without requiring you to remove the cap?

 

Went on Nikobrew, one of the companies that sells it and they have better detail , it appears it just allows you to add C02 after you open it every time to purge air then enters when you take cap off. There is another product out there (another Kickstarter project) called Tapit Cap, that adds CO2 AND allows you too hook a picnic tap to the cap.

 

I'm with Vikeman on this. Growlers are not intended for long term storage, so there's very little attention paid to keeping O2 and bugs out when they're filled (when was the last time you saw a growler get purged and/or rinsed with StarSan before being filled?). The beer certainly won't last longer than it would in the growler (which is generally recommended to be consumed within 2-3 days). You might get a few more days out of it than you would if you pour a pint then put it away, and it wouldn't go flat, but it will deteriorate pretty rapidly, nonetheless. Also, consider the cost. A growler is a bit less than a six pack of beer. A 3 gallon Corney keg is six growlers. At $10+ for anything that I would bother with, that's over $60 for less than a case and a half of what will quickly become stale beer.
Instead, talk to the brewer and see if he does Corney fills. You might be surprised.

 

I hate to put down innovative ideas, but purging headspace with CO2 after pouring does nothing to get rid of the air that mixes into the beer when you pour it. I'm sure it keeps it fresh a little while longer, but unless you can keep the growler sealed while pumping beer out, I don't see that as particularly useful. The Tapit cap, on the other hand, seems awesome.

And this is neither here nor there, but it appears that both companies used the same template for their webpages.

 

Buy a few of these, and grab some empty 2L bottles. Use the carb cap as the lid, and flush with CO2 after you get home from the growler fill place. Re-purge with CO2 after each opening. A 2L is the same volume as a growler, I know here in OR they fill them the same.

I've done this with extra beer from my own brews, or with growler fills. Kept both La Folie and GF Palate Wrecker DIPA fresh for a couple weeks.

 

Maybe not much work to you, but in my life, taking the time to properly purge and clean everything to rack in 2-3 gallons of beer I paid a mark up for in growler form, to put it in the keg, would be a decent amount of work.

Chances of getting it properly filled, and all that jazz would be the premium on making it worthwhile, but honestly, I don't see the need to hold up a keg that I'll need to clean after the fact, because I over bought some beers in growlers.

Might work for the hoarders, but I think it's more work and chance involved, but like mentioned, it's probably doable, but I wouldn't hold it for more than a week or two at best.

 

If you rub elbows with the right people they'd probably be willing to fill a keg for you. If they say no because the supply is limited then you're probably a jerk for thinking about hoarding 6 growlers of the stuff in one night.

 

Yes, and the reason (as others have said) is that exposure to oxygen will cause the beer to go stale pretty quickly.

If somebody was really dtermined to do this, you might be able to devise a way to pump the beer into a C02 purged cornie avoiding oxygen exposure. You'd have to build a cap for the growler that would allow you to pump C02 in and and intake line to draw the beer from the bottom of the growler into a line that would feed into the keg. I'm trying to imagine the circumstances that would make it worth the effort and ... nope, I can't imagine doing all that work rather than just drinking the damn growler when I got it home.

 

In the grand scheme of things, I've gone through a hell of a lot more to get 3 gallons of beer into a corny. Quadruple decocting a hefeweizen comes to mind.

Sure, kegging 6 growlers worth of beer bought from somewhere isn't as rewarding as homebrewing, but if the beer is better than what you can make at home, and they won't fill your keg, it seems like a reasonable amount of work for the payoff, depending on how much of your enjoyment from the hobby comes from actually drinking beer.

 

It's hard to see this as being about the quality of beer you're able to drink. There are so many high quality beers available on the market these days I can't keep up with them. The beer being kegged from the growler might be better than beer you could make at home, but it's not much better, if at all better, than other beer that you can buy. Seems to me this would be more about the novelty and/or status symbol of having a hard-to-get beer on tap.

 

Hill Farmstead and Tired Hands bottle a very limited amount of their beers, but have several beers available on tap all the time that are better than any other beers you can buy. Also, beer is NOT a fungible product. The fact that there are other beers available in no way affects the value of a draft-only offering.

And maybe we have different standards, but I don't know where you're finding so many high quality beers that you can't keep up. Most beer is crap compared to the very best of the best; and when the very best of the best is only available on draft, and especially if it is far away, stocking up on a few gallons of it is more than just for novelty or status. People do it all the time, as a matter of fact, and when you tote a few 64 oz. growlers home from Hill Farmstead, it might be nice to keg it so that you can drink it a glass at a time, particularly if it is something like Abner that isn't conducive to a 64 oz. session.

 

I think MLucky was saying that IF this is an attempt to hoard a rare beer, then the Brewer is likely to perceive it as jerky. And (presumably) if it's not rare, then knock yourself out.

(Though I personally still don't think it's a great practice from a freshness standpoint.)

Now that this has escalated from jerk to dick, I can only imagine the next volley.