When to use Co2

Hi, me and my mate are new to brewing and I have just finished our first ferment of Irish Stout from a kit. As we are new we are following instructions exactly from the kit.

Instead of bottling it with a little sugar we have placed it into a 5g keg that can be pressurised with a disposable C02 injector. I have added the correct amount of sugar to this and finings from the kit. Apparently it will be good to drink in 2 weeks.

My question is, do I use the C02 now whilst it is going through the second ferment or do I wait 2 weeks and then start using the C02 when I want to drink it?

Thanks

I just bought the exact same setup. Instructions were to prime with sugar, as you did, in the keg; wait two weeks, and only then use the C02 to pour. The C02 in this case is used only for pressure to get the beer in the tap line, and is not a forced beer carbonation use of the C02, since the beer is being "naturally" carbed with the priming sugar. I pushed down the valve just for a split second, and sure enough, with just the priming sugar, there is some pressure building up in the keg, so all seems to be working fine. One more week for me and my first tap homebrew. Good luck and enjoy this pound-draining hobby

If you've primed it with sugar, it's best to let the yeast create the CO2 for carbonation and then use the CO2 for serving.

However a little zot of CO2 in the headspace won't hurt anything.

My understanding is that the disposable C02 injector do not have a regulator and are difficult to use for forced carbonation, but are fine for serving.

correct, no regulator. I got a 10-pak and all I am using them for is a 3-gal mini-keg, so figured this was a good way to go. I'm only picking up a fridge tomorrow, so just getting started towards having a kegerator/on-tap beer.

You're going to be really really surprised how fast those cartridges run out. I know I was. It's really just enough to push about 10 pints out of an already carbed keg.

I think I get 4 pints per cartridge on an otherwise unpressurized keg.

damn! That sux. Oh well, I'll push what I can, and then upgrade as time and $ allow. Thanks for the tips.

you really want to invest in a CO2 tank. IME those cartridges are only good for taking kegs to the park and fixing bicycle flats... oh, and maybe shooting paintballs.