Taking cornies on holiday?

[Kev888]

I'm intending to take some of my shiny friends away for a week to meet some of my other friends, over the festive season - how very sociable

But recent keggorator/foam issues have reminded me how fussy cornies can be, and when away I'm not going to have any control of their temperature at all; it could be that there's a safe place to keep them outside or they could have to be in the house at 24c for all i know.

So I'm thinking to avoid foam issues, maybe I should de-carbonate them as much as possible and then when the time comes pressurise as gently as possible and only whilst serving. But I'm a little concerned as that would probably mean leaving the release valve open quite a lot and also without pressure the lids won't be sealed properly either..

Does this sound good or stupid or are there other things that work for people?

Cheers
kev

[polymoog]

would'nt it be simpler just to take bottles?
however my very first corny (still got it too!) was from a brewshop and it had been converted to be used with a S30 gas bottle with a little pressure gauge where the in post is.
i could take a keg of beer with a picnic tap and the small gas bottle and just twist a burst of gas as needed.
if you can drill a spare lid and fit the valve then i think this would be the most streamlined solution to portable draught beer
cheers kev, polymoog

[Nofolkandchance]

I'm having the same dilemma. Sort of accepted that bottles in crates is the solution in lieu of kegs and am now pondering a Blichman beer gun due to ease of use.

[Kev888]

would'nt it be simpler just to take bottles?
however my very first corny (still got it too!) was from a brewshop and it had been converted to be used with a S30 gas bottle with a little pressure gauge where the in post is.
i could take a keg of beer with a picnic tap and the small gas bottle and just twist a burst of gas as needed.
if you can drill a spare lid and fit the valve then i think this would be the most streamlined solution to portable draught beer
cheers kev, polymoog

Yes I guess bottles are a backup, but several cornies worth of glass bottles would take up a lot of boot space (and suspension travel!) and I haven't really perfected the art of bottling carbonated ale as yet. Its probably going to come down to that though - either get a transportable cornie setup that I can reliably avoid foam from, or get a proper bottling system sorted.

I'd not thought of the S30 possibility; I don't have drilled caps but i do have an old injection valve that i could possibly bodge to a gas disconnect. That said I do have one of Norm's small (2kg?) cylinders so thats probably quite portable...

I'm having the same dilemma. Sort of accepted that bottles in crates is the solution in lieu of kegs and am now pondering a Blichman beer gun due to ease of use.

Yes that sounds familiar! I'd thought that the counter pressure bottlers were the best thing to maintain carbonation and that the blichman gun was just a convenient way of injecting gas then beer (which i do already if separately), but actually some people seem to feel that its good for carbonated stuff too so probably theres more to the design than meets the eye.

Cheers
kev

[testtube]

Perfect temp outside at the mo here. I have a small co2 bottle and reg (flow not psi) I use for casks, it's from machine mart, I can fill a corney and see if it pushes water out if you like, but are about 16 for reg and about 10 for bottle, I got it with a mig.. Oh and I have changed the connector on the reg from 4mm to 5mm so fit's 3/16 beer line.. £5

[far9410]

When I take mine with me I use a wet towel to keep the temp down , not veery scientific but it helps!

[JontyR]

Kev, have you got a beer engine? You could avoid the need for gas completely if you do. I assume it'd be drunk fairly quickly oxidsation wouldn't be an issue. Just pop a disconnect onto the gas in to vent the corny and beer engine onto the out.

[Twistedfinger]

Here's my corny I took to the broads this year. It made a perfect rod rest Its fitted with a SO30 adapter and after a bit of trial and error it poured ok. I kept it outside overnight which cooled it down and kept it out of the sun during the day...except when fishing !!

[Kev888]

Crikey - what a response; thanks chaps!

Perfect temp outside at the mo here. I have a small co2 bottle and reg (flow not psi) I use for casks, it's from machine mart, I can fill a corney and see if it pushes water out if you like, but are about 16 for reg and about 10 for bottle, I got it with a mig.. Oh and I have changed the connector on the reg from 4mm to 5mm so fit's 3/16 beer line.. £5

Thats really interesting, I've seen those at machine mart and often wondered. I think I'm okay with Norm's small cylinder for now, but they can be tricky to get refilled so i may well keep this in mind for the future!

When I take mine with me I use a wet towel to keep the temp down , not veery scientific but it helps!

Ah yes, like some people do for FVs; that could help if I'm forced to keep them somewhere too warm - I'm happy with 'room temperature' ale but some people's version of what that should be is way warmer than I like my rooms!

Kev, have you got a beer engine? You could avoid the need for gas completely if you do. I assume it'd be drunk fairly quickly oxidsation wouldn't be an issue. Just pop a disconnect onto the gas in to vent the corny and beer engine onto the out.

Sadly i don't; they look like a bit too much work for me at the mo, but I'm definately tempted for the future - the dalex/gas-powered things work well and are simple to maintain, but having used beer engines in the past they're 'very' satisfying to use! I guess you could even use them with a sealed corny if you had a demand valve... hmm..

Here's my corny I took to the broads this year. It made a perfect rod rest Its fitted with a SO30 adapter and after a bit of trial and error it poured ok. I kept it outside overnight which cooled it down and kept it out of the sun during the day...except when fishing !!

Now that looks like a holiday!!! I suspect mine will be grey and damp at this time of year..

Hmm so yes the S30s seem to work well then - perhaps the main thing there is that they're not constantly pressurising, so drops in temperature whilst the keg isn't in use don't absorb too much gas..

Thanks again to all!

Cheers
kev

[Titch]

can you not buy one of those tyre pressure gadgets that they sell for kegs

and a few co2 bulbs? not very precise but they work

[GrowlingDogBeer]

Here's my corny I took to the broads this year. It made a perfect rod rest Its fitted with a SO30 adapter and after a bit of trial and error it poured ok. I kept it outside overnight which cooled it down and kept it out of the sun during the day...except when fishing !!

You could have hung it off the side of the boat in the water. That would have kept it nice and cool.

[Kev888]

can you not buy one of those tyre pressure gadgets that they sell for kegs

and a few co2 bulbs? not very precise but they work

Yes, I hear they can be most useful for such situations so its a good call. Its probably unnecessary for me personally though, as I have that 2kg cylinder mentioned before.

My main concern is really to avoid foaming; were I to use a corny force carbonated at 12c and then move it to a room at say 24c then the warmer beer will retain the CO2 less well and it'll turn to foam as the pressure drops - probably even before it leaves the dip tube. Thats possible to plan for in theory by altering the initial carbonation, but my problem is I don't know in advance what rise/drop in temperature i'll have to deal with

Possibly I'm over-complicating this (as always!) as I could just play safe and carbonate very modestly - I like flatter ale myself anyway, but I'm sort of trying to appeal to a wider (if un-paying!) market.

Cheers
Kev

[Twistedfinger]

You could have hung it off the side of the boat in the water. That would have kept it nice and cool.

I took the gear to do this but the summer we had was sh~t and I found it cooled enough overnight plus a wet towel and shade was all it needed. Plus I was worried about dropping it over the side to be lost forever !!

Possibly I'm over-complicating this (as always!) as I could just play safe and carbonate very modestly - I like flatter ale myself anyway, but I'm sort of trying to appeal to a wider (if un-paying!) market.

Deffo the way to go, Im not into fizz and really only gassed enough to get the beer out, I degassed it before loading the keg into the car and found that there was enough of a gas built up from the beer to pour when I got it onboard. I then only had to give it the slightest burst of gas when the flow dropped off.
It was well worth the effort and made my holiday all the more enjoyable.

[Kev888]

Excellent; thanks for that. Maybe I can just take a 'very' gentle approach to carbonating and do away with lots of venting and other complication.

Cheers
kev

[testtube]

Crikey - what a response; thanks chaps!

Perfect temp outside at the mo here. I have a small co2 bottle and reg (flow not psi) I use for casks, it's from machine mart, I can fill a corney and see if it pushes water out if you like, but are about 16 for reg and about 10 for bottle, I got it with a mig.. Oh and I have changed the connector on the reg from 4mm to 5mm so fit's 3/16 beer line.. £5

Thats really interesting, I've seen those at machine mart and often wondered. I think I'm okay with Norm's small cylinder for now, but they can be tricky to get refilled so i may well keep this in mind for the future!

Norm's cylinder's are great, badly reconditioned fire extinguishers.. really good, the valve goes in a rather large dangerous hiss, wake's u up it does.. after a few month's... you email him and he just ignore's you.. £45 down the pan.. Wanker and TWAT come's to mind.. Oh and my psi reg I got off him has packed up as well, so far in test it hurt's... BAD..