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Can I pour cans of Carling in to a keg to use with a beer tap?

It's a 9 liter keg, and all the beer will be drunk that day/night

What gas pressure would I need? (If it's possible.)

Can the same be done with dark fruit cider? Again, it will all be drunk on the same day/night. (It's just a show off thing for the beer garden.)

I will pour the cans in slowly taking my time, I would just like to know if it will be possible.

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I have done this with homebrew beer, but never commercially-bottled beer. The issues should be the same, though:

  1. You will significantly shorten the beer's lifespan due to the oxygenation, but if you fill the keg as full as you can so there's little to no airspace at the top and you're drinking it all that day, you'll be fine.
  2. When you force-carbonate after sealing the keg, I'd recommend 10-15 psi of pressure.
  3. I have no experience with ciders, so I'll defer to someone else on that, although I can't see why it would be any different.
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  • thanks, I will try this..i just don't want to brew my own just yet,
    – gary
    May 15, 2018 at 17:41
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There is no difference between ciders and beers for that matter. Ciders might be easier to pour because the foam less. At very low temperatures, however, this difference should be negligible.

If you freeze the cans down to -1/-2°C, you could refill them without losing much CO². Then you wouldn't have to force-carbonate the beer.

I would also fill the keg to the top in that case.

Use a cold keg that does not warm up the beer in the process. Tilt the keg like pouring a glass, so the beer is always in contact with the keg.

Normal serving pressure would suffice.

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  • The beer venues I've worked at often separate the cider and beer lines, as to not contaminate the cider lines with... beer yeasts, maybe? Idk, something. Might make a difference in that regard, depending on what it held previously. Random thought
    – Jayhal
    Jun 14, 2018 at 11:37
  • @Jayhal Before or after using any kind of equipment, you of course would want to sanitise everything. That should be enough. Small amounts of yeast in the serving line won't contaminate anything unless you do nothing for weeks. Keeping separate lines for cider makes more sense from economic and management aspects when you have different beers and ciders all the time. E.g you change from cider A to cider B. In that case having a small amount of cider A in a glass of cider B won't hurt anyone and go unnoticed. Having a bit of beer in your cider is a different stories though.
    – life-on-mars
    Jun 14, 2018 at 13:20

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