Kegged an already sugar primed beer, what now? Temperature? Can I still force carb?

I went to bottle a delicious smelling Whiskey Barrel Stout that's been in secondary for a month. I usually keg, but for this batch, I decided to bottle to keep it around for a while.

I broke 3 of the first bottles and figured out my capper is totally broken. :smack: Given that I had already sugar primed for bottling and that my beer was already in the bucket, I just opted to go ahead and keg it as damage control in a moment of frustrated commitment.

So now it's in the keg, sealed, and with a blanket of CO2...but I've never naturally carbonated in a keg before.

Do I leave it at normal temps around 70? Should I put it in the kegerator? If I put it in the kegerator and want to force carb it, will the low temperatures inhibit natural carbonation and just let me do it like I normally would and force carb?

I don't like the sounds of a yeast cake at the bottom of my keg from nat. carbing, so if keeping it cold will essentially make it like I had never added the sugar (except maybe a mild increase in sweetness), that would be AWESOME. :rockin:

Obviously I'm frustrated and this makes me hate bottling even more that I used to. I'm kegging everything from now on until I get a bench capper...

Thanks folks.

You could have some issues if you sugared the beer for bottling since the sugar required to self carb in a keg is about a third as much. You could be getting too much pressure. You'd really have to keep a close eye on it and bleed off the pressure as it built. Most threads I've read like this will tell you to just keep the beer in a bucket until the sugar is used up and then force carb. If it's already in the keg, keep a close eye on the pressure.

It will be fine, though will be over primed a little. I'd give it a couple of weeks, then bleed the pressure a bit, and give it another week or two. The keg can hold a lot more presure than a bottle so there is no danger, just a matter of the beer might end up over carbbed. If so, you will just need to leave it off the gas and purge it a few times (shaking it some so gas will come out of solution)

It'll be fine. If you can taste the priming sugar, and it's too sweet, you can leave it at room temperature to ferment out and then purge it and put it in the kegerator. If it tastes perfect now, just go ahead and stick it in the kegerator and force carb.

The amount of extra sediment in the keg from naturally carbing is negligible. You shouldn't notice any more than usual.

Yooper said:

It'll be fine. If you can taste the priming sugar, and it's too sweet, you can leave it at room temperature to ferment out and then purge it and put it in the kegerator. If it tastes perfect now, just go ahead and stick it in the kegerator and force carb.

The amount of extra sediment in the keg from naturally carbing is negligible. You shouldn't notice any more than usual.

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What she said. ^

And if you decide to force carb, make sure to keep it at serving temps until it's gone.

Thanks guys, yeah it tastes fine. It's a vanilla whiskey stout, so a little extra sweet isn't even noticeable. It's in the kegerator at 10psi as we speak. I'll try to remember to post any problems I have, should they arise.