So last night I intended to bottle my first sour (flanders Red) however, when faced with the task of bottling 50 beers again I decided screw to say screw it and I'm just going to keg it. I had an empty corny dropped in 4 oz of table sugar, seal it up and left it in the basement. Today I'm realizing that when people do this they probably have room for an extra corny to keep it cold, which I don't. So in a few weeks time this will be primed up with nowhere to store unless I have another keg kick. Can anyone think of harm that would be done to the beer if I put it on tap (cold) take it off (room temp) frequently? I want to put it on when I feel the need for a sour but the majority of the time it will be standing room temp. Thanks in advance
Yes and no. By taking it on and of.f the cold, you will be forcing carbonation repeatedly into and out of solution. When it's warm, the holding capacity for the CO2 in your beer will decrease, meaning you will have less CO2 in suspension. This can cause foaming and flat beer issues. The beer will also degrade faster as it warms up and cools off. This is mostly important to IPA's and other hoppy styles, but if you consume the keg young, that should be fine. PS: when you chill the keg, let it rest in your kegerator a good 24 hours before serving to re-absorb as much of that co2
When you warm up a sealed keg, the equilibrium between the CO2 in solution and the CO2 in the headspace doesn't change. The holding capacity per se doesn't change. The amount of constant pressure (during the carbonation process) needed to reach equilibrium at a give volumes of CO2 does change. But in OP's case, the beer is already carbonated. Increasing the temperature increases the CO2 pressure in the headspace as well as in the beer. The extra foam from warm beer comes when it's opened/dispensed, because that higher (extra) pressure is released.
